AUTOBIOGRAPHY
INTELLECTUAL, MORAL,
AND SPIRITUAL.
With detailed Index added.
BY
REV. ASA MAHAN, D.D., LL.D.,
AUTHOR OF "OUT OF DARKNESS INTO LIGHT;" "THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST;" "CHRISTIAN PERFECTION;" "MISUNDERSTOOD TEXTS," ETC.
These things "out of the spoils won in battles" have I dedicated "to maintain
the house of the Lord."
LONDON:
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR.
T. WOOLMER, 2, CASTLE STREET, CITY ROAD, E.C.
AND 66, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
___
1882.
GRAND RAPIDS:
REPUBLISHED BY THE EDITOR.
RICK FRIEDRICH OF ALETHEA IN HEART MINISTRIES,
1350 PARKWAY DR. NE 303
GRAND RAPIDS, MI 49525 USA.
(616) 447-8124
TruthInHeart.com
——
MAY 2001.
Mahan, Asa, 1800-1889.
Autobiography: intellectual, moral, and spiritual.
(Religion and Philosophy in America)
Republication of the 1882 ed. Published by T. Woolmer,
London.
1. Mahan, Asa, 1800-1889. 2. Congregational churches—
Clergy—Biography. 3. Clergy—England—Biography.
First Alethea In Heart edition published in 2001.
Republished from the edition of 1882, London, without altering anything but format and page numbers. With English spelling. Detailed index added.
CONTENTS.
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CHAPTER PAGE
TABLE OF CONTENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
FORWARD FROM THE EDITOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
I. EARLY RELIGIOUS IMPRESSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
II. MY CONVICTION AND CONVERSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
III. EARLY STEPS HEAVENWARD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
IV. PRIMAL SOUL-CULTURE, HOW ADVANCED, AND HOW HINDERED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
V. GROWTH DESPITE ADVERSE INFLUENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
VI. PROGRESS IN DOCTRINE: CHOICE OF SYSTEMS . . . . . . . . 82
VII. FADING OUT OF PRIMAL LIGHT, AND LOSS OF PRIMAL JOY AND POWER: BREAKS IN THE CLOUD: LIFE UTILITIES . . . . . 90
VIII. DISAPPOINTED HOPES: SEMINARY LIFE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
IX. PASTORAL OFFICE AND LIFE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
X. PROGRESS IN CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
XI. THE GREAT WESTERN REVIVALS, 1824—I832 . . . . . . . . . . 150
XII. EXPERIENCE AND REFLECTIONS AS PRESIDENT OF COLLEGES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
XIIL THE TWO PERIODS OF MY CHRISTIAN LIFE . . . . . . . . . . . 193
XIV. THE REASON FOR THE HOPE THAT IS IN ME . . . . . . . . . . 218
XV. NEEDFUL CORRECTIONS AND EXPLANATIONS, AND ANSWERS TO OBJECTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
XVI. TRUTH AND ERROR, AS THEY APPEAR IN THE LIGHT OF FACTS OF OBSERVATION AND EXPERIENCE . . . . . . . . . . . 266
APPENDIX
INDEX OF: SUBJECTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
PEOPLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
PUBLICATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
FORWARD.
FEW people in the 19th century have so incredibly laboured for God in so many pursuits, have painstakingly mastered the irreconcilable ends of Philosophy and Theology, or have patiently earned the right to compel the twenty-first century to sit at their feet, than Asa Mahan. There is no man on earth who would not be seriously enlightened—whether at fundamental odds with or not—by his keen insights into the nature of reality, the universe, and the Mind, on the one hand, or by his almost forceful encouragement of the infinite riches waiting for us through Jesus Christ on the other. Our words could not even replace his in order to give you a taste of the value you will understand them to be when you have meditated upon them even a short while. Indeed, we have found him to excel every other work on most subjects he felt the need to advance. Unsatisfied by vain searches to find sufficient textbooks on important subjects for the education of the future leaders of the nation, he was often hard-pressed by many of the greatest minds of his day to surrender in print his mind on such matters. It can be seen in the works themselves that there was no competition to have the most popular works on the subjects, but rather they reveal an intense love for truth and all beings associated with reality. They reveal such manly independence and enjoyable insights that we will all gladly learn not to believe what he says, but to sit attentively enough and hope to glean the secrets of how he mastered the arts of learning, persuasion, and contentment. We have found few authors in history who have so kept themselves from prejudice and overstatements, and who have not contented themselves with teaching upon a subject until they so considered it to the point where their opponents confess that they speak with authority, and the friends of the truth feel warmly secure.
We could site many examples of the godly influence Mahan had on America and the world, but we give only the following concerning slavery:
Mahan does not strictly give us an autobiography in the usual sense of the term. His motives, like Finney's, were to glorify God by praising Him for the wonderful works He has accomplished through the hardest circumstances in his life; and to do so by revealing just how God rescued him 'out of darkness into Light' in the intellectual, moral, and spiritual departments of life. This is a most enjoyable book as it so exalts God and satisfies mankind that they also can find 'their complete sufficiency in God.' There are at least three major reasons why the church should greatly desire this work: 1. It reveals in great detail how a very talented and strict teacher of classic Calvinism—equal to Edwards—painstakingly was honestly forced to examine all his lifelong assumptions; and after years of consistently living out the same system, was forced to reconstruct his entire foundations for the honor of God in being finally freed to believe all that He said in His Word (under oath) of our 'salvation to the uttermost' through Jesus Christ; 2. It extensively reveals how many thousands came to live radiant holy and fruitful lives through the deeper work of the promised Spirit, and the reasons why the Church has lost this most important Gift of God; 3. Finally it contains so much insight into Pastoral theology, preparation, and ministry that it would give each church member and every minister desiring to feed God's lambs an extensively devotional textbook for the highest education in evangelism, missions, and spiritual leadership in the various offices of the Church.
One final word about a further purpose for the publication of this wonderful book. As there has been some doubt about the unity of doctrine between Mahan and Finney, (or even with Wesley), we give you the following quote, the work itself, and the subsequent complete works of both:
"IT is now quite forty-six years since, in connection with my late brother in Christ, Finney, I first presented to the public in printed form my views of the doctrine of Salvation to the Uttermost, together with my reasons for my belief in that doctrine. Simultaneously with my own presentation, and in full accordance with it, brother Finney presented his views upon the same subject, together with his reasons for holding them."
We trust that while you will take these same truths to your knees, that God will shine in your "hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ"—and then so cause your light to shine as He did with them.
INTRODUCTION.
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I AM this day, November 9th, 1881, eighty-two years of age. Sixty-five years of this period I have spent in the service of God. Eighteen years of my Christian experience and life were spent in the dim twilight of a semi-faith, which very clearly and distinctly apprehended Christ as the Lamb of God Who (judicially) "taketh away the sin of the world;" but knew almost nothing of Him as the Son of God, Who baptizeth "with the Holy Ghost," and "saveth to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him." During these years, my pilgrimage, for the most part, was with those "who fear the Lord, and obey the voice of His servant, and walk in darkness, and have no light." My spiritual heaven was comparatively obscure, because there was no open vision of the face of God, and because the Sun of Righteousness lay below the horizon around me; "the eyes of my understanding not being enlightened, that I might know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe." During this period my sky was never wholly dark, From the hour of my primal love and joy in God, I have never been "a backslider in heart," but my face has ever been heavenward. Not long after my conversion I attained, by long and fervent prayer, to that form of full assurance in which I could say most unhesitatingly, "I know that I love God, and have eternal life." This assurance of present acceptance, after a time, merged into "full assurance of hope," an assurance which has not, and never had, any connection with the belief that a soul, once converted, is absolutely certain of final salvation. At the time of my conversion, "the eyes of my understanding were enlightened" to know my past character and life as they were, even to "a discernment of the thoughts and intents of the heart." No one who has not been thus enlightened can form the remotest apprehension of the utter and absolute abhorrence with which that old and godless life was regarded by me at that time. The thought of perdition was not, in my distinct regard, so fearful as was the idea of a return to that old life. Hence it was that for a long period I made it the constant subject of specific and most earnest prayer, that God would keep me from apostasy, and also from being a backslider, even in heart. The result was, that I became possessed of a fixed inward assurance, into which no element of doubt entered, that I should have grace to "hold the beginning of my confidence steadfast unto the end." As far as the question of present acceptance and final salvation is concerned, I have, during these sixty-five years, "served God without fear;"—would that I could add, in regard to them all, "in righteousness and holiness before Him." During these years my face has fixedly been heavenward, and I have had no misgivings, when I have sung in respect to the world through which I was passing, "I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger." To worldly ambitions, hopes, and treasures, I have ever said, when the question of duty and usefulness arose before me, "Do not detain me, for I am going where the waters are ever flowing." I now know, and during my Christian pilgrimage have known, what the apostle meant when he said, "I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air."
A life characterized by such assurances cannot, at any period, have been altogether a joyless one. "Knowing Whom I had believed, that He was able to keep that which I had committed to Him against that day," I was possessed of inward joys and consolations with which strangers never intermeddled; and which exceeded what was common, or even occasionally known, in the churches and ministry around me. He, however, Who had "loved me, and given Himself for me," and for Whom I was ever ready to "lay down my life," had left the world and gone to the Father. I had no apprehension of what my Saviour meant when He said, " I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you;" and, "If any man love Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him." To my faith, Christ, and the Father too, were afar off, in heaven; and I was not only "a pilgrim stranger," but an orphan "here below;" a son indeed, but for the present an exile in an enemy's country. Hence my sky was never clear and bright, but everywhere covered with a grey cloud, through which the rays of the Sun of Righteousness dimly penetrated. Occasionally there would be, here and there, rifts in the cloud, through which I would obtain glimpses of the glory beyond, and thus have awakened within unutterable aspirations to possess the open beholdings and Divine fellowships of which the Bible says so much, and especially to understand, by experience, what our Saviour meant when He said, "I know Mine own, and am known of Mine, even as the Father knoweth Me, and I know the Father." Here, I said, is a form of knowledge which it must be bliss indeed to possess. On no subject did I, during the latter part particularly of those eighteen years, inquire so earnestly, or search so diligently, as in respect to the nature and secrets of that Divine life to which, as saints of God, we are called.
Forty-seven years ago, at a period when my way seemed most dark, and when my desire for the open vision referred to had become almost insupportably intense, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, "the eyes of my understanding were enlightened," the grey cloud above and around me disappeared, and I stood face to face with the Sun of Righteousness, feeling His Divine healings through every department of my being. During these forty-seven years, that Sun has not gone down, and one desire has possessed my entire being, and determined all my researches after truth, and all my activities, and that is, to "present every man perfect in Christ Jesus," and, as a means to this end, to make known to all "the unsearchable riches of Christ," and to "make all men see what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe," and "what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory."
In another book, Out of Darkness into Light, I have given a somewhat detailed exposition of my varied religious experiences during the first sixty years of my religious life; and I do not intend in the present work to repeat, except so far as distinct elucidation requires, what is there written. The present work has been prepared on a plan far more extensive. During my religious life, I have had a very intimate association with the various religious, moral, social, and political questions and movements which have agitated and moulded thought in America and the world at large, and with many of the leading minds who gave form and direction to these great movements. As a student of theology and Biblical science, and of all the sciences, as a preacher of the everlasting Gospel, and as a Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy and Theology, I have had occasion to ponder, and weigh, and determine, with great care and circumspection, the various problems of natural, mental, moral, and theological science, together with the doctrines of the diverse schools in philosophy and religion. As a theologian I have, as the result of the most careful and candid inquiry and research, passed from the extreme bounds of Calvinism to the quite opposite pole of the evangelical faith. In the sphere of religious experience I have, as has been shown in the early part of this Introduction, emerged from the dim twilight and servitude of a semi-faith, into the sphere of open vision, where God is our "everlasting light," and "the days of our mourning are ended."
Here, as the result of all my inquiries and diverse experiences, I find myself, on this my eighty-second birthday, in the full and blissful assurance of the Divine origin and authority of the Holy Scriptures of both Testaments, of the doctrine of the Sacred Trinity, of atonement by the blood of Christ, of regeneration, of justification and sanctification by faith, of the baptism of the Holy Ghost, of immortality, and "eternal judgment;" and holding all these and kindred truths in "the full assurance of faith," " full assurance of hope," and "full assurance of understanding," I have been urged by individuals in whose judgment I place great confidence, and who have had an intimate acquaintance with my habits of self-reflection, to write out, for the benefit of the Church and the world, my own intellectual, moral, and spiritual autobiography. After prayerful consideration I yielded to such advice. Hence the following treatise.
Before closing this Introduction, I would add that I have this absolute faith in the doctrine of a personal God, of inspiration, duty, sin, redemption, immortality, and retribution, not merely as a student of theology, but as a student of science also. If God is the common Author of the Bible and of the universe, it is self-evident that the real revelations of each must coincide perfectly with, and confirm, those of the other, and that where seeming contradictions appear, the fact must be owing wholly to the limited or false vision of the disciple of truth. It has been under the lead of these fixed and immutable convictions that all my inquiries in the spheres of natural, mental, moral, and theological science have been prosecuted. As the result of the most careful and rigid application of the known laws of scientific thought and inquiry, I am an absolute believer in the doctrine of a personal God as the common Author of creation and the Bible, and in the perfect unity and harmony of all the teachings of these two Divine volumes. My conviction in the actuality of such unity is not the result of a blind faith, but of open, distinct, and absolute vision. Some two or three years since, I held several extended conversations with a very intelligent graduate of Cambridge University, who admitted that in religion he was a sceptic, and who, at the special request of friends, sought these interviews. Near the close of our last interview, after admitting that he saw no possibility of avoiding my final deductions in science and religion, he thus addressed me: "Dr. Mahan, one fact in regard to you has surprised me. You evidently have a clear understanding of all the systems of philosophy that have ever been developed. Yet you are in perfect agreement with the faith of common evangelical believers around you." My reply was, that, with the intelligence that God had given me, I could not be the student of science I have been without arriving at the absolute convictions which I now entertain in regard to matter, spirit, time, space, God, the soul, duty, immortality, and retribution, and that I could not honestly hold and apply these principles without being perfectly at home in the sphere of Christian thought and life to which he referred. It is of the greatest importance that all friends, and especially all teachers, of truth should have full possession of that settled rest of spirit which has its basis not only in conscious moral purity and integrity, but in immutable and settled convictions resulting from open and absolute vision of Truth itself. A leading object of the following treatise is to disclose and render intelligible the processes of thought and deduction by which the author, as an inquirer, and for nearly thirty years a teacher of science, arrived at his present settled and peace-imparting convictions on the subjects under consideration.
INTELLECTUAL, MORAL, AND SPIRITUAL
AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
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CHAPTER I.
EARLY RELIGIOUS IMPRESSIONS.
IT was at the age of seventeen years and two or three months that I was born of God. The reader will better understand and appreciate the intellectual, moral, and spiritual life to which he is about to be introduced, if we go back to the period which immediately preceded the event above referred to, and consider the specific religious convictions and impressions to which I was then subject, together with the character of the causes of those convictions and impressions.
Early Education.
My education from my childhood up was, especially in a doctrinal sense, a religious one. The circle in which I was educated was exclusively Calvinistic of the" straitest sect" ever known. Always a regular attendant upon public worship on the Sabbath, I had never, up to the period of my life now under consideration, heard more than two or three discourses from any preacher who did not belong to this school. As soon as I was able to read at all, the first treatises put into my hands were the Assembly's Longer and Shorter Catechisms. The latter I was required to commit to memory, and to repeat to my mother from Sabbath to Sabbath, that is, very frequently, during the years of childhood. From the teachings of these catechisms and other forms of religious instruction, my views of Christian doctrine very early took a definite and systematic character. Being naturally endued with a reflective mind, and especially with a quenchless thirst for knowledge, and especially for the knowledge possessed by intelligent men and women around me, I was ever a most attentive and eager listener to their varied conversations, conversations especially which pertained to two subjects,—battles, and questions of Christian doctrine; and no child was more favoured than I was in gaining the best information of the latter kind. My mother was one of the greatest female thinkers and readers on religious topics that I ever knew. No minister in all the region of country where we lived was more fully acquainted with the writings of such thinkers as Edwards, Hopkins, Bellamy, and Emmons, than she. My father's house was consequently the centre for the discussion of Christian doctrine with the most intelligent members of the church to which he and my mother belonged. Western New York, where my parents lived from my twelfth to my seventeenth year, was, at that time, for the most part, missionary ground. Scattered in all directions were feeble churches without pastoral care. These churches were favoured from time to time with the temporary services of missionaries sent out for the most part from the State of Connecticut. Standing on one of the main roads and near the centre of the town, my father's house was the fixed stopping place of these missionaries. How my heart would leap when a stranger would ride up to my father's door, and announce himself a missionary from the State of Connecticut. "Now," I inwardly exclaimed, "we shall have more conversation about these doctrines;" and I was never disappointed. As soon as the proper time for conversation came, my mother, who was a woman of few words herself, would put some leading questions which would arouse to the highest degree the mental activity of the visitor, and insure a most animated discussion of some of the great doctrines. Not unfrequently more or less of the neighbours would come in and heighten the interest of the discussions. Sometimes two such strangers would call at the same time, and then the interest of the collisions of thought would reach its climax. To all such scenes there was sure to be one listener whose attention and interest never flagged. The church of which my parents were members, never, during the period under consideration, enjoyed public preaching except on alternate Sabbaths; on all other Sabbaths they had what were called "Reading Meetings," meetings in which two printed discourses were read aloud. The discourses selected represented what was then universally regarded as embodying the best thoughts of the best Calvinistic divines of the age, and in each discourse some phase of some one of the great doctrines was elucidated. Whenever any new volume was introduced, my mother was certain to borrow it and read its discourses through, and always aloud when I was present. I therefore usually heard all such discourses twice read, and listened with the strictest attention.
Even after I was eight or ten years of age I was much given to religious thought and reflection. I seriously question whether, after this period, I was for half an hour alone by myself without pondering more or less seriously some forms of religious thought. I refer to the above facts in order to evince that I must have been an inexpressibly stupid thinker had I not, under such influences, attained to very clear, distinct, and definite apprehensions of all the leading doctrines of the system of faith in which I was educated. That my apprehensions were not only clear and definite, but strictly correct, I argue from the two following considerations: 1. No one ever suggested to me the thought—not even my mother, who ever had an open view of all my religious thinking—no one ever hinted to me, that I had misapprehended at all any of those doctrines. 2. My subsequent theological reading and education never suggested to me the idea that I had, in any particular, misapprehended the nature of any of those doctrines. I have fundamentally changed my views of the accordance of those doctrines with the Word of God, but never in respect to what is their intrinsic nature and character.
Religious Convictions and Impressions induced by these Doctrines.
What now were the religious convictions and impressions induced in my mind by a most careful and impartial view of these doctrines? I use the term impartial because I never entertained the prejudices entertained against them by worldly minds around me. I accepted them as truths of God, which I could not change, and by objecting against which I could only injure myself. I recollect very well an argument presented in one of the discourses which I heard read; an argument which, for years, utterly silenced in my mind all objection against the doctrine that infinite criminality is set down to the account of every individual of the race on account of the one sin of Adam. The argument was this: Had Adam maintained his integrity, and had God, on account of the merits of his obedience, set down to the account of each individual of the race the desert of infinite good, no creature in earth or heaven would have objected. Why, then, should any one object to the fact, that on account of Adam's sin infinite demerit is set down to the account of every such individual? Years passed before an objection arose in my mind to this doctrine of imputation. Thus candidly and impartially did I contemplate all the doctrines under consideration. I speak, also, of the impressions arising from a consideration of these doctrines. I had other religious convictions and impressions induced in my mind by other facts and considerations; and to these I shall direct special attention hereafter. What we are now to consider is the convictions and impressions induced by an exclusive consideration of these doctrines themselves.
What, then, were these convictions and impressions? An utter and absolute exclusion, I answer, of all ideas of real duty, obligation, merit or demerit of good or ill, from the entire sphere of Christian truth, thought, and action. This, I affirm unqualifiedly, was the exact state induced in my mind by those years of careful study of those doctrines. That I was under condemnation to eternal death, on account of the one sin of Adam, which God had imputed to me, I entertained not the remotest doubt. Yet that I was, in any sense or form, morally responsible for that sin, that real desert of punishment did, or could, attach to me personally on account of it, or that I was in the remotest degree under obligation to repent of the same,—no such thought or sentiment ever approached my mind. The sin and its imputed penalty lay, in my thoughts and reflections, wholly outside the circle of personal responsibility or desert; as much so as did the Flood, and the crimes of the generations which preceded and occasioned that world catastrophe.
Equally absolute was my, conviction that through the fall of Adam, and by a Divinely established law of natural descent, my "whole nature was corrupted" and "disabled to all that is good;" that what is "commonly called original sin" was to me and all the race a dire reality, a reality on account of which an eternal doom hung over myself and all the race. Yet I intuitively imputed original sin to myself and to the race as a pure calamity, and never, in any sense, as a crime. I was familiar with the fact of hereditary diseases descending through parents to their children, through successive generations. The child in whom such disease appears, is always compassionated, and never regarded as really criminal, for being afflicted with such disease; and that even when it is known that the parent brought upon himself the disease by crime. So I intuitively regarded, "the corruption of our whole nature, which is commonly called original sin."
That I was a sinner, originally and actually so, I had no doubt, and fully believed my catechism, when it affirmed that "all sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of the Divine law, deserves God's wrath and curse, both in this world and that which is to come." The term deserves had no meaning in my regard but this, is doomed to receive. The term sin, as employed in theological and Christian discourse, represented nothing whatever for which I regarded myself as, in the remotest degree, responsible. When spoken to of particular outward actions as right or wrong, or as deserving of praise or blame, my conscience gave a ready response to the correctness of such imputations. But when sin was spoken of, sin which, I was then taught, consisted in inward natural corruption, or in positive states or acts necessarily resulting from "indwelling sin," all conviction of real responsibility for such corruption, states, or acts, wholly dropped out of my mind, or rather never became a matter of conviction at all.
The same held true of all the specific requirements of religion, such as repentance, faith, love, and religious service. I was well aware that these were immutable conditions of salvation; that without "repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ," I should be eternally lost. Yet the conviction that I ought to repent and believe never had place in my mind. I was fully aware that "I must be born again, or I could not see the kingdom of God." I had no more consciousness of any obligation to become a Christian, however, than I had to become an angel.
I saw nothing whatever in the character of God, as seen through these doctrines, let me add once more, nothing whatever which awakened in my mind for a moment the conviction, in any sense or form, that I ought to love Him. I knew that I was required to love Him, and must do it, or be lost eternally. As presented to my apprehensions, there was everything in God to inspire awe, fear, and dread, but nothing to attract and to love. All His thoughts, plans, purposes, works, and government had their beginning, middle, and end wholly within Himself. He loved His creatures, and valued their interests, as the potter delights in and values his clay, as something to which he can give mould and shape to meet his own personal ends. So, as I was taught, God, by His omnipotence, gives existence to creatures, determines their character, lives, and destiny, forms and moulds them as vessels of honour or dishonour in absolute subordination to one exclusive end, His own pleasure, or "glory," as it was called. With what awe, and dread, and freezing terror, and with no love drawings, did we hear such stanzas sung as the following!
"Keep silence, all created things,
And wait your Maker's nod.
My soul stands trembling while she sings
The honours of her God.
"Chain'd to His throne a volume lies,
With all the fates of men,
With every angel's form and size,
Drawn by the eternal pen.
"Not Gabriel asks the reason why,
Nor God the reason gives
Nor dares the favoured angel pry
Between the folded leaves."
Thus it was that, through the religious teachings which I received, and the doctrines which were continuously held before my mind, and so deeply pondered by me, all real sentiments of religious obligation, all real convictions of duty, and all real consciousness of moral desert, were utterly excluded from the sphere of Christian thought and reflection, in which my mind had its dwelling-place. Had I been possessed of no conscience or moral nature at all, there could not have been a more absolute exclusion from my mind and thoughts of all such sentiments and convictions.
These Convictions and Impressions the necessary logical Consequents of the Doctrines in which I had been instructed.
We will now advance to a consideration of these doctrines themselves, and inquire whether the convictions and impressions under consideration were or were not the necessary logical consequents of what is intrinsic in the doctrines through which these convictions and impressions were intuitively induced in my mind. To set the subject distinctly before the reader, permit me to invite special attention to the following fact. Some twenty-five or thirty years since, when in the city of New York, I learned that a relative of mine, the wife of a wealthy merchant in that city, was in a precarious state of health. I had known her from childhood, and for many reasons she was very dear to me. She, as was true of myself, had from childhood been educated under the exclusive influence of these doctrines. Regarding this as probably my last opportunity for conversation with my niece, 1 called for one exclusive purpose,—a serious conversation with her on the interests of her soul's eternity. When this subject was introduced, she frankly confessed to me that she was not a Christian. "The question of my salvation," she added, "in no sense or form lies with myself but wholly at the sovereign disposal of God. If I am not one of the elect, my doom is fixed and irreversible, and I can do nothing to change it. If I am one of the elect, the time of my conversion is immutably determined, and I can do nothing to hasten or put it off. When that time shall arrive, God will send His Spirit to renew my heart, and it will be absolutely impossible for me to resist Him, or prevent my conversion. I have nothing to do, and can do nothing in the matter." "My dear, precious niece," I exclaimed, "reasoning thus and acting thus you will lose your soul, as sure as you exist." This only convinced her that I was a teacher of error. I found her mind, as my own had been, a total blank, as far as any proper convictions of sin, or any religious sentiments of duty and moral desert, were concerned, and all through the exclusive influence of the doctrines in which she had been educated. Whether any change occurred in her experience prior to her death, which took place but a few months after my visit, I never learned. Was this utter extinguishment of such convictions and impressions the necessary logical consequence of the doctrines under consideration? This is the question before us.
In the forefront of all these doctrines stands that of the Divine Decrees, which is thus defined in the Assembly's Catechism "The decrees of God are His eternal purpose, according to the counsel of His own will, whereby, for His own glory, He foreordained whatsoever comes to pass." " God executes His decrees," it is added, "in the works of creation and providence." "God's works of providence," we further read, "are His most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all His creatures, and all their actions." "The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God, so far manifest themselves in His providence," says the Confession of Faith, "that it (His providence) extendeth itself even to the first fall, and all actions of angels and of men and that not by a mere permission, but such as hath joined with it a most wise and powerful bounding and otherwise ordering and governing of them in a manifold dispensation to His own holy ends." Here we are taught that all events, including all the actions of all beings, were, from eternity, immutably predetermined by God Himself; and that in providence He employs His omnipotence to bring those absolutely predetermined events to pass. No events, then, thus predetermined can, by any possibility, fail to occur, and to occur just as predetermined, and no events not predetermined can by any possibility occur. The absolute and exclusive Determiner is God: the determined are all existences and events, the nature, mental states, and actions of all creatures included. Granting the facts as here stated—and they must be thus granted, if this doctrine is true—where, in the necessary judgment of the universal conscience and intelligence, must all moral responsibility, moral obligation, and moral desert, if they exist anywhere, be exclusively located? Must they be located with the absolute and exclusive Determiner, or with the absolutely determined? Holding that doctrine as true, my conscience and reason and intelligence intuitively denied of myself all personal obligation and moral desert. So, these being the only premises from which to judge, must the conscience and reason and intelligence of every rational being decide. We can no more conceive that obligation and moral desert lie exclusively with the absolutely determined, and not with the absolute and exclusive Determiner, than we can conceive of an event without a cause.
Next in order after the Divine decrees, we will consider the condition of the human race in consequence of the fall of Adam, as set forth in the system under consideration. The fall, we must bear in mind, was according to this system as absolutely fixed and predetermined by a Divine decree as any other event. Adam, by an irresistible overruling providence, was placed in a state of probation, in which, as a foreordained event, his fall could not but occur. What is the affirmed state of the race consequent on that fall? "The covenant," says the Catechism, "being made with Adam, not only for himself but for his posterity, all mankind, descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him in his first transgression." "The fall," we are further told, "brought mankind into a state of sin and misery." Again "The sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell, consists in the guilt of Adam's first sin, the want of original righteousness, and the corruption of his whole nature, which is commonly called original sin, together with all actual transgressions, which proceed from it." Once more: "All mankind by the fall lost communion with God, are under His wrath and curse, and so made liable to all the miseries of this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell for ever." In another connection, we were taught, that "all sin, both original and actual, being contrary to the law of God, deserves His wrath and curse, both in this world and that which is to come." Again: "The sinfulness of that estate wherein man fell consisteth in the guilt of Adam's first sin, the want of that righteousness wherein he was created, and the corruption of his nature, whereby he is utterly indisposed, disabled, made opposite to all that is spiritually good, and wholly inclined to all that is evil, and that continually." "Man by his fall hath lost all ability of will to any spiritual good."
For each of three distinct and separate reasons, infinite criminality is, according to the doctrine under consideration, set down to the account of each individual of the race, namely: I. For a single act of one individual, an act perpetrated thousands of years before a vast majority of them existed at all. 2. For the original possession of a fallen nature, in the origination of which they had no more agency direct or indirect than they had in the creation of the world; a fallen nature which God Himself originated through the laws of natural generation. 3. For actual transgressions which the fallen nature of which mankind thus became possessed, rendered it absolutely impossible for them not to commit. For these specific reasons I did regard myself as thus doomed. My reason and conscience, however, absolutely cleared me of all real criminality in the matter, so absolutely that the thought that I could be really criminal for the sin of Adam which was imputed to me, or for sin in any form, original or actual, never entered my mind. Why did my conscience and intellectual and moral nature thus intuitively judge? For the absolute reason, I answer, that that judgment is the necessary logical deduction from the doctrines themselves.
The pastor of a leading church in an American city, a church of which my own daughter was a member, after stating these doctrines just as I have done, added that while he fully believed in these doctrines, in the ill-desert of sin, and in the duty of repentance, it was absolutely impossible for him to conceive how the creature can be responsible for sin, or under obligation to repent of it. He could conceive of no such possibility, I answer, for the simple and exclusive reason, that the thing is an absolute impossibility. The intuition is not more absolute that a circle is not a square, than is the judgment that if those doctrines are true, obligation and moral desert are impossibilities.
State of Infants who die before they are capable of committing actual Sin.
Infants who die before they can possibly commit actual sin, die, according to the express teaching of the system under consideration, under the desert of "God's wrath and curse" to eternity, for two fundamental reasons; namely, the guilt of Adam's sin which is imputed to them; and "original sin," or "the want of original righteousness, and the corruption of their whole nature." According to my absolute intuitive apprehensions, while I regarded such desert as actually imputed to all such persons, there was, and could be, no real desert of such punishment, or of any punishment at all, in such cases. We have, in fact and form, the absolute verdict of human reason and conscience inside and outside the Church in respect to this particular case. And what is this verdict? The doctrine was once openly maintained, that infants dying in such state were of two classes, elect and non-elect; and that the latter, for the two specific reasons above designated, were actually doomed to eternal misery. The doctrine was so shocking to the reason and conscience and moral nature of universal mind, sanctified and unsanctified, that this doctrine of infant damnation has been frowned with indignation and reprobation out of the Church, and it is now confessed with shame that any such horror ever had place in Christian belief. What is the reason that this doctrine is universally held in such utter reprobation? The reason, and the only reason, is that according to the absolute intuition of the universal reason and conscience, no such desert, no desert of punishment of any kind, does or can attach to a moral being for the reasons assigned. If such desert for such reasons does exist, and is perceived to exist, there should be nothing morally shocking to any mind in the idea that such punishment is actually inflicted. The idea that any being receives what and no more than he actually deserves, shocks the reason and conscience of no moral agent. Either the intelligence and conscience and moral nature as God has constituted them are a lie, or no desert of eternal doom, or real desert of punishment in any form, does or can attach to infants, or to men now living, for that first sin of Adam or for any mere inherited constitutional temperaments.
Doctrine of Election, Reprobation, Regeneration, &c.
We will now consider the doctrines of election, reprobation, regeneration, and kindred doctrines, as set forth in the system under discussion. "By the decree of God," says the Confession of Faith, "for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death." "These angels and men, thus predestinated and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed; and their number is so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished." "Effectual call is of God's free and special grace alone, not for anything at all foreseen in man; who is altogether passive therein, until, being quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit, he is thereby enabled to answer the call, and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed therein." "Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, Who worketh where and when and how He pleaseth." "All the elect, and they only, are effectually called."
As regeneration and effectual calling were affirmed to be the exclusive work of the Spirit, a change in which the creature is "wholly passive," I was accustomed to hear aged, intelligent, and experienced believers affirm that the Spirit could regenerate an individual when asleep as well as at any other time. And where can an error be found in such utterances, if the doctrine on which they are based is true?
Now, taking into account the doctrines of the Divine decrees, of the fall, of election, regeneration, and effectual calling, as actually set forth in the system under consideration, who will deny that the necessary logical consequent is the absolute validity of the conviction that rested upon my mind, that I was in reality under no more real obligation to become a Christian than I was to become an angel; that no more real desert of punishment did or could attach to me for the fall of Adam than for the fall of Satan; and that in no sense or form was I responsible, that is, deserving of punishment, for sin, whether original or actual? Can any one feel surprise that I deliberately regarded all charges of guilt on account of sin, and all affirmed obligations to repent of it and enter upon a holy life, as absurd mockeries? I distinctly recollect saying within myself, when our deacon charged such things upon us, "Now, Deacon B. is mocking us. He knows that what he is saying is not true."
The reader can now understand clearly the validity of my conviction, that the character of God, as presented in this system, wears one exclusive aspect,—infinite selfism, valuing His creatures but as the potter values his clay, as objects which, by His own power, He can form and dispose of for His own ends. For what exclusive end did God, as we are here taught, foreordain whatsoever comes to pass? For His own glory. Why did He elect a portion of our fallen race to eternal life? For His own glory. Why did He from eternity determine to pass by the non-elect, and leave them to perish in their sins? For His own glory. If we should become "followers of God" in conformity to such a revelation of His character, our selfism would be as absolute as His.
Different and opposite Schools of Calvinism.
At the period to which I now refer, Calvinists were divided into three schools; the division in the Presbyterian Church into Old School and New School not having then occurred. Of the three schools then existing the first held, in the strictest form, the doctrines above considered, as set forth in the catechisms, and its creed was commonly represented by the terms "limited atonement" and "inability; "the latter term having reference to its tenet that all men are, by original sin, disabled from all good acts.
The doctrine of the second school was denominated "Hopkinsianism; "the Rev. Samuel Hopkins, D.D., of Newport, Rd., in connection with President Edwards, being its principal expounder and advocate. This school agreed in all essential respects with the first-named, as far as the doctrine of the fall is concerned. In opposition to a limited, Hopkinsianism maintained a general atonement, affirming that provisions of grace in Christ are for the entire race, and are as free for the acceptance of the non-elect as for the elect. In opposition to the doctrine of absolute inability, this school affirmed that all men, the non-elect as well as the elect, have natural but not moral ability to accept the offer of life and obey the will of God. It was a common saying among believers of this school that, although their eternal doom is fixed by an eternal decree of God, the non-elect have natural power, by accepting the provisions of grace, to insure their salvation by breaking the Divine decrees. According to the teaching of this school, also, the common influences of the Spirit, those under which none are ever converted, are given to all men without exception. His special influences, on the other hand, those which always when vouchsafed result in conversion, God, in the exercise of His sovereignty, withholds from the non-elect and confers upon the elect. While the common influences of the Spirit never result in conversion, they do infinitely aggravate the criminality and doom of the non-elect. All men, the non-elect included, have natural ability to obey God, because nothing hinders their doing so, and assuring their own salvation, but their unwillingness. They lack moral power, because they have no power over their own choices; that is, they choose the evil and refuse the good, without the power of contrary choice. The distinction between this doctrine of natural ability and moral inability, and that of absolute inability as maintained by hyper-Calvinists, as they were then called, was found, when the two doctrines were clearly understood, to be in reality a distinction without a difference; the common doctrine of each school being that unregenerate men have no available power whatever to obey God. No school maintained the doctrine of eternal decrees and of unconditional election in a more absolute form than did that under consideration. In all His works and government God has, we were taught, but one exclusive end,—His own glory, the display of His perfections. To this end it is as necessary that some should eternally sin and suffer, as that others should be eternally holy and happy; and God from eternity elected His vessels of mercy and vessels of wrath according to His sovereign pleasure. By the founder and leading advocates of this school, it was most strongly maintained that such should be our regard for the sovereign will of our Maker, that "we should be willing to be damned for the glory of God." A bound volume of an old magazine in my library at home contains an article written by myself in defence of this doctrine. The doctrine of general atonement and natural ability, as maintained by this school, was hailed by multitudes of ministers and believers as a fundamental advance in the direction of rational Christian truth, and as rolling an incubus of infinite weight from Christian doctrine.
The doctrine of the third school, which was founded by the Rev. Nathaniel Emmons, D.D., was denominated "the Divine Efficiency Scheme." In all points in which the second school differed from the first, this last agreed with the former, and rejected the doctrines of the latter. In contradistinction from the teachings of each of the first two schools, this last denied and denounced the doctrines of the imputation of Adam's sin, and of all desert of punishment for "original sin," maintaining that men are and can be justly held responsible but for their own voluntary acts of obedience or disobedience to the revealed will of God. The peculiarity of the system was, that it maintained that in conformity with an eternal decree God, by the direct exertion of His own omnipotence, originates all human volitions and acts, the holy and the sinful in common. Thus God, by the direct and immediate exertion of His own omnipotence, moulds the character and determines the destiny of the elect and non-elect. Thus also, according to the bald teaching of this school, teaching which had among its open advocates not a few of the ablest thinkers in the United States, God holds all sinners as deserving, and actually inflicts upon the non-elect eternal doom, for acts which He, by the direct exertion of His own omnipotence, renders it absolutely impossible for them not to put forth.
Such were the doctrines of these three schools, which included all Calvinists at that time. The doctrine common to them all was that of Necessity, that all human activity cannot but be, in all respects, what it is. Now, while the doctrines of each of these schools were condemned by the united verdict of the universal intelligence outside of the schools themselves, as utterly subversive of all righteous legislation, human and Divine, of all obligation and moral desert of every kind, making God the only responsible Being, each of them denounced, in exactly the same forms, the doctrines of each of the others. "The idea that God," exclaimed the hyper-Calvinist and Hopkinsian, "by the direct action of His own omnipotence, originates all human volitions and acts, imputes infinite criminality to the Almighty, and renders Him the most fell tyrant conceivable." Just such language I often heard at that time, and no direct reply was ever made to the imputation. The following was the mode in which the advocate of Divine efficiency replied to the objections of the opposite schools. "You affirm that the doctrine that God imputes infinite criminality to sinners for acts of transgression which He, by the direct action of His own omnipotence, renders it impossible for them not to commit, dishonours Him. What then must we think of your doctrine, that God imputes to all men the desert of eternal doom for a sin which they never committed at all, and also for the possession of a depraved nature, in the origination of which they had no agency whatever, direct or indirect, but which God Himself, by the direct exertion of His own omnipotence, did originate through the laws of natural generation? If it would imply infinite wrong in God to impute infinite guilt to men for acts which He directly originates in them, and necessitates them to commit, would it not imply equal wrong for Him to hold them thus guilty for actual sins, which the fallen nature which He thus imparted to them renders it impossible for them not to commit?"
On a visit to Dr. Emmons, the Rev. Lyman Beecher, D.D., thus addressed his venerable friend: "You hold and teach, do you not, Dr. Emmons, that God, by the direct exertion of His own omnipotence, actually originates all sinful volitions and acts?" "I do thus hold and teach," was the reply. "Well, Dr. Emmons, there is, to my apprehension, something inexplicably mysterious about this matter, and I would earnestly request you to remove the difficulty. When God, by the direct exertion of almighty power, has originated an act of sin, He seems to be very indignant at what He has Himself created. He also manifests infinite surprise that the event should have occurred at all, and calls upon heaven and earth to unite with Him in astonishment and indignation that an act of obedience does not appear, instead of the sinful one, when He, by the direct exertion of His own omnipotence, renders the appearance of the former, and the non-appearance of the latter, an absolute impossibility. How do you explain such difficulties, Dr. Emmons?" The countenance of the great expounder of the doctrine of Divine efficiency instantly became a total blank. Putting his hand to his forehead, he remained for some time in deep thought, then dropped his hand, and looking in every direction with a bewildered stare, he remained silent. Dr. Beecher was too much of a Christian gentleman to embarrass his venerable friend with further questions, and the subject was dropped. When Dr. Emmons apprehended his own doctrine as it is in itself, the intuition became absolute in his own mind, that the absurdity of that doctrine was infinite. Now the doctrine of each of the schools under consideration does undeniably involve an absurdity as blank and palpable as this, and can by no possibility be so expounded as to be freed from such absurdity.
I have spoken of the utter exclusion from my mind, through the influence of these doctrines, of all proper conviction of sin as that which actually deserves "God's wrath and curse," and of all other kindred convictions. Now this was practically true, not only of worldly minds around me, but of believers also. Even the most devout Christians I knew, when they mentioned their sins, always spoke of them as evincing, not infinite criminality and ill-desert, but feebleness and dependence. They would make confession that all their "righteousnesses were as filthy rags," and that there was no soundness in them; that from their heads to the soles of their feet they were "full of wounds and bruises and putrefying sores," and then, with a placid smile, they would exclaim, "What poor dependent creatures we are!" They always compassionated, instead of really criminating themselves, when they spoke of their sins. Under a distinct apprehension of these systems, conviction of sin, in its only true and proper form, is an utter impossibility. Many who hold these systems have real conviction of sin, and that because their intuitions, enlightened by the Spirit of God, supersede the influence of doctrinal beliefs.
Illustrative Incident.
About forty-seven years since, when I was pastor of a Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, I was invited to attend a Protracted Meeting in the village of Oxford, the seat of a State University of that name. The pastor of the church where I preached, who was also my host, requested that I would have special religious conversation with a sister-in-law of his, then residing in his family. She was, as he stated, the principal of the ladies' academy in the place, of superior education, of a high order of talents, and most irreproachable morals, but utterly unapproachable on the subject of religion. "The principal motive which I had in securing your present services," he added, "was the hope that you might be instrumental in leading her out of that ice-bound, unapproachable state in which she has been for years." During my first religious conversation with that lady, she made this remark to me: "I see nothing whatever in the character of God, for which my conscience affirms to me that I ought to love Him." On my inquiring the origin and cause of such impressions, she stated that years previous, when a pupil at a female academy in New England, she boarded in the family of one of the most influential members of the church in the place. During a revival of religion in the academy she was the subject of very deep religious impressions. In conversation with the gentleman referred to, she was told that if she was not one of the elect, as she very probably was not, her present religious impressions could have but one result,—to render her more a vessel of wrath than she otherwise could become, and that the Spirit was very probably given her for this purpose. Subsequently to this she overheard this man inform some Christian friends that he had made these statements to her, and that he believed they were true. Accepting this as the correct view of her case, her heart at once seemed to be turned into a stone within her, and she had never since felt any disposition whatever to give thought to religious subjects. My prompt and earnest reply, as soon as she had finished her statements, was, "Miss you ought to be sent to perdition. God has given His Son and sent His Spirit to you for one expressly revealed and exclusive purpose, 'that you might not perish, but have everlasting life,' and has affirmed, under oath, that He has 'no pleasure in' your 'death;' that He entertains but one desire in respect to you, and that is your salvation. Yet, in the face of all this, and on the bold assertion of that most presumptuous man, you have for all these years entertained the horrid slander upon your Heavenly Father, that He was dealing with you, not to secure your salvation, but to insure your eternal doom, and render that doom as aggravated as possible. What excuse will you, can you, offer to your injured Father and God, should you appear before Him in this state, for having made yourself a vessel of wrath by entertaining such soul-ruining thoughts in regard to Him? Go to Him at once, and tell Him frankly and broken-heartedly how you have injured Him, and wronged your own soul, by such thoughts." Perceiving that the ice around the heart was broken, I left her for a short time to her own reflections. At our next interview, after presenting a full statement of "the truth, as it is in Jesus," I put the question directly to her, "Will you now admit that God loves you, desires to confer eternal life upon you, and will do it as soon as you turn to Him, and commend yourself to His grace and mercy?" "I will," was the prompt and earnest reply. On the evening following I preached from the text, "If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous," and showed on what conditions Christ will act in our behalf in this relation, and what He will procure for us if we commit our case to Him. On our way from the meeting I said to our friend, "Miss —, shall Christ he your Advocate?" "If I do not accept of Him," was her prompt and earnest reply, "I ought to go to hell. I can plead guilty now. I have but one desire, and that is that Christ may possess and control my whole being." When I left the place she was one of the happiest converts I had ever seen. More than thirty years after that, I met that minister and inquired of him in respect to that sister-in-law. "She died a few months since," was the reply, "but such a life as she led, after your visit to Oxford, I do not know that I ever witnessed. We never saw in her the remotest indication of backsliding, and her Christian character was throughout wonderfully complete and symmetrical. She never shrank from duty in any form, and never appeared to think that she could do enough for Christ. So her life brightened on to the close. And it did seem as if 'heaven had come down to greet,' as we stood about her dying bed."
Here we have God's truth, as often perverted and misrepresented in the schools, on the one hand, and as revealed in His Divine Word, on the other. Here, too, we have the distinct and opposite results. What that man said to that inquirer was a veritable exposition of the doctrine which he held, and the effect upon her mind was the legitimate outcome of that doctrine. When I had been for several weeks in great anguish of mind on account of my religious condition and prospects, our deacon, who was de facto the pastor of our church, fully aware of my state of mind, thus addressed us: "My impenitent friends, bear this in mind, that if any of you were not from eternity elected unto eternal life, your salvation is impossible." When I afterwards spoke to another leading professor upon the subject, his reply was, "I ought to say to you that the statements of Deacon B—— were undoubtedly correct." That my soul was not wrecked for eternity was owing wholly to the mercy and grace of God in counteracting the natural effects of fundamental error. The reason why such teachings were presented to persons "under concern of mind," was the belief then commonly entertained, that in revivals, of all other times, "the doctrines should be fully preached." In after years such teachings were withheld until the revivals had passed by.
Origin and Character of Early Religious Impressions
which led to my Conversion.
My early religious convictions and impressions were, for very many years after my conversion, a mystery to me; and it was only after long and very mature reflection that I came to fully comprehend their nature and causes. At first thought it would seem likely that systems of doctrine, the belief of which utterly extinguishes and excludes from the mind all proper convictions of real obligation to obey the law of duty and the will of God, of the real ill-desert of sin, and of responsibility to comply with the revealed conditions of eternal life, would as utterly exclude all religious impressions of every kind. In my own case, for example, there was this utter exclusion of proper religious conviction, on the one hand, and the very frequent presence of very deep religious impressions of another kind, on the other. The real cause of the absence of religious convictions of the kind under consideration has already been explained. The origin, and causes, and character of the impressions referred to admit of an equally ready explanation.
Let us suppose that the entire race has inherited from our first parents a disease, which can by no possibility be removed or modified by human remedies, and which, left to its own course, would, within a limited period, result in death. We have, at the same time, a revelation from God that He has from eternity determined and made provisions to remove this disease from a certain fixed number of the race, His elect, the number of whom cannot be increased or diminished, and at a certain predetermined period to carry them through a certain crisis, from which they will by Divine power pass into a state of permanent health and happiness. The other portion of the race, " persons not elected," God has immutably determined to pass by, and leave under the power of this disease, through which, at the crisis when the elect surmount it and live, if not before, the non-elect die and return to dust. Under such circumstances, while none could or ought to feel any responsibility for their state or destiny, the question, "Do I belong to the number of the elect, or non-elect, the number who are to survive and live, or to die and return to dust?" might be to each a subject of the deepest concern; and when the determining crisis should come, all might, each in his turn, experience not only great physical but mental agony.
Now, when my mind awoke to a consciousness of myself and the realities around me, I found myself; according to what was taught me, actually under sentence to eternal doom for the act of an ancestor—an act committed near six thousand years before my being commenced—and for a fallen nature derived from that ancestor, a nature in the origin and character of which I had had no more agency than I had had in that first sin. I found myself, also, in consequence of this inherited nature, utterly disabled to all that is good, and with no power to avoid actual transgressions for which infinite retributions were to be inflicted upon me, unless I should be rescued by an Almighty Power above and beyond myself. Here I was met by an affirmed revelation that I belonged to one of two classes, the elect or non-elect, the number of neither of whom could, by any possibility, be either increased or diminished; and my place and destiny, as a member of one or the other of these classes, was fixed immutably from eternity. Finally, somewhere in the unrevealed future of life, if I did not die earlier, I should pass through a crisis called "concern of mind," as the result of which it would be known what destiny was, from eternity, written out for me, and "drawn by the eternal pen" in that dread volume that "lies chained to the eternal throne." All this was real to me, an object of unquestioned belief.
Now, while such convictions of my state and destiny did, as would have been true, in the case above supposed, of necessity, exclude all consciousness of personal responsibility and desert from the sphere of religious thought, the question of my relations to these supposed eternal verities, and of my destiny in connection with the same, did press, and that very often, with awful and crushing weight upon my sensibilities. How often did the question arise, "When will the crisis in my being come? and shall I pass through it to eternal doom, or into the light of eternal day?" Then, as my mind would wander off into the great hereafter, how often would the thought roll back upon me, with overpowering weight," What is my decreed destiny there?"
"Where shall I find my dwelling-place?
Shall I my everlasting days
With fiends or angels spend?"
These infinite and eternal verities were none the less real to my mind because wholly disconnected with the ideas of moral obligation and moral desert. Hence it is that revivals of religion, periods of general religious seriousness, not unfrequently occur under ministrations, the leading doctrinal teachings of which tend but in one direction, to prevent and extinguish all proper religious convictions. Such preachers as Edwards, the Tenants, and Mr. Nettleton, were high Calvinists, but men of great revival power. Under the discourses of Edwards, for example, on such themes as, "sinners in the hands of an angry God," and, "Their feet shall slide in due time," very many of his impenitent hearers would wail aloud, and others fall helpless upon the floor. Thus aroused, they would seek and find peace in Christ. Such explanations will prepare the way for a presentation of the
Early Religious Impressions which led to my Conversion.
A fact which gave those aspects of religious truth which were adapted to move my sensibilities the greatest power, was my absolute conviction that all these doctrines, the most awful and impressive among them especially, were unquestionable verities. In my childhood, I had an overshadowing veneration for manhood. It appeared to me impossible that beings who knew so much could err in judgment, or could deceive. No one can conceive the shock which I received when, in growing years, the reality opened upon my mind that men and women could lie. Hence I repeated my Catechism, and listened to religious teaching at home and on the Sabbath, with an absolute and unquestioning assurance that I was hearing nothing but eternal truth.
As soon as the idea of dying entered my mind, I had an inconceivable dread and horror of death. Wherever I was, the thought of dying, and being buried in that deep, narrow place, was seldom absent from my mind. Often, when alone, I would cry aloud for horror at the thought of death, the coffin, and the grave. In connection with such reflections, thoughts of the eternal verities that lie in the great hereafter would throw their awe-inspiring shadows over my spirits. Between my ninth and thirteenth years three events occurred, in each of which I escaped death as by a miracle. In the first instance, when wholly unable to swim, and with no one present able at all to help me, I found myself, by a momentary accident, in water far over my head. By singular presence of mind, I moved under the water toward the shore, until, in a most exhausted state, my head rose above the surface, and I was safe. Had I moved in any direction but the one I did, death would have been inevitable. The other two escapes, which were as remarkable and providential as that, I need not detail. These events brought eternity, as never before, to my apprehension. How often would I start back at the thought which would suddenly come over me that I had three times hung as by a thread over the bottomless pit, and that, had I lost my life on either occasion, eternal damnation would have been my portion! An event which made a very deep and lasting impression on my mind occurred when I was about fourteen years of age. It was the sickness and death of a school and play mate, who was very dear to me. I was one of four lads who were selected to bear that silent body, so tenderly dear to us all, into the graveyard, and set it down by the side of its low and narrow house. With what deep and impressive interest did the question often come home to my mind, "Where has the spirit gone? And what if mine, instead of his, had been called for?" As one and another dropped around me, now an aged neighbour, then a strong man or woman in middle life, then a child, and then a youth, or one just merging into manhood, how narrow the space came to appear between myself and "the undiscovered country!" I sometimes seemed to myself to be walking on a narrow path with my grave open on each side of me.
But the influences which, more than all others, gave form and depth to my early religious impressions were what passed daily before me in the domestic circle. Very much of the religious conversation which I heard there was of an experimental character, and proceeded from the most spiritual believers in all the region round. In listening to such converse I, from time to time, got impressive insights into the interior of the Christian life. I thus became deeply impressed with the essential difference between the worldly and the Christian life, and with the opposite adaptations of each, as the soul, in one or the other state, should enter eternity.
But what most impressed my mind was what I saw in the daily life of my mother. She was, in public regard, one of the best housekeepers known. In the morning, after the family had partaken of the meal prepared, and everything about the house was put in the most perfect order, she would take down her Bible and seat herself in her rocking-chair. How still and solemn and peaceful everything about her then appeared! No one broke the silence at such periods. After a few moments of deep thought, she would read to herself—she never read aloud then—a portion of that blessed Book which she loved so much. Then, after another season of deep and silent meditation, she would retire to some secret place for a season of prayer to God. I often listened, unknown to her, to her words, as she would open her heart to her Maker and Saviour. How often would the thought force itself in upon my mind, "O that I were possessed of the spirit that dwells in the heart of my mother!"
Among the books which, next to her Bible, my mother loved to read, were the memoirs of the holiest men and women known in the circle of her religious faith, such as, for example, those of President and Mrs. Edwards, of the Tenants, David Brainerd, Miss Susanna Anthony, Mrs. Sarah Osborne, and Mrs. Isabella Graham. These books she commonly read aloud in my hearing, and for my benefit specially, and particularly the most impressive incidents. I have not looked into one of these books for more than half a century, yet the incidents referred to are to this day as distinctly before my mind as when I first heard them read. I refer to the wonderful manifestations of the Divine glory and love to President and Mrs. Edwards and David Brainerd. Full of interest, too, were the lives of Miss Anthony and Mrs. Osborne. In a weekly female prayer-meeting established by these holy women, and which had continued without the interruption of a single week through thirty years or more, Miss Anthony, for example, would sometimes be so borne upward in prayer for a world in sin, that she would continue on her knees for the space of one or two hours, and no one bowing with her would suspect that her prayer had been long continued. In view of "the spirit of grace and of supplications" poured out upon these women and others, President Edwards expressed the fixed belief that a period was near when revivals of religion would occur such as the world had not witnessed in ages past. Such facts made a very deep impression on my mind. Mrs. Osborne lived in widowhood to a great age, she and a granddaughter occupying a small cottage in a state of utter poverty and dependence upon the voluntary benefactions of the church and community around her. Yet she never begged a favour of any human being, and never, in a single instance, lacked her daily bread, and a full supply of it. Not unfrequently would she rise in the morning with not a particle of food in her house. "Put on the tea-kettle, daughter," the aged saint would say: "as soon as it is ready, what we need will be here;" and some one, under a Divine impression, always did come in with the very things that were wanted. In times of need, she always told her Father the facts just as they were, and never failed to obtain what she asked. When my mother would read such facts to me, and would then turn to her Bible and read such passages as, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want," how safe the people of God appeared to me under the guardianship of their Divine Shepherd, and how agonising the desire which would spring up in my mind to become a member of that sacred flock! Then the triumph and peace of those saints in the hour of death. What a parting scene was that between Mrs. Graham and her daughter at the death of the latter, which seemed to be an almost visible transfiguration! As the glorified spirit took its flight, the mother, lifting her hands, exclaimed, "I wish you much joy, my darling."
How oft and how solemnly did I repeat that ancient utterance, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!" I never spoke in ridicule of Christians, as impenitent persons around me often did. At one time, for example, I was present when two half-brothers and several young men, all much older than myself; were disporting themselves at the expense of religion and the members of the church. I rebuked very strongly their impiety, closing with these words: "I wish that we were as well off as Christians are." All such considerations and impressions only made more visible and awful to me the "great gulph fixed" between myself and the world, on the one hand, and the people of God, on the other. Often did I express the inward wish that I had lived in the time of our Saviour, or that He were now on earth as He was eighteen hundred years ago. "Were He now here," I said, "I should know what to do. I would go right to Him, give myself wholly to His control, and trust Him to make me what He desired me to be, and He would do it." But now, what could I do, but wait for "the effectual call," were it eternally decreed for me?
When I was about sixteen years of age, an event occurred which made an enduring impression upon my mind. I had occasion to take a quantity of grain to a mill about eight miles from home, the mill near my father's residence being stopped for repairs. While waiting for my grist, I noticed an individual with a black face, in company with a young lad, at work in a pasture near by. Having nothing else to do, I went over into the lot where they were. The supposed coloured man I found to be a white youth about two years older than myself; he having blackened his face in sport. I had been in his presence but a few moments, when I found him to be one of the most shocking blasphemers I ever met with. The chief direction of all his thoughts appeared to be to combine the most horrid oaths possible. With a kind of shuddering terror I soon left him, and returned to the mill. The miller then told me that that was the most recklessly depraved and wicked youth he had ever known. Some time before he had run away from home, had but just returned, and seemed to have but one ambition, and that was to show the community how depraved and wicked so young a person could become. About two weeks subsequently to this, I had occasion to go to that mill again. I then learned that that youth, to all appearance, was on his death-bed in his father's house a few rods distant. He had just before attended the town election at the village two miles distant, and there made himself a spectacle of terror, for reckless depravity, to all present. On his return home he was suddenly stricken down with a deadly fever. Not obtaining my grist that day, I returned for it two days after, and then and there witnessed a death scene, the memory of which never escaped me, a scene exceeding in horror anything I had ever before conceived. Like his life, the death of that youth seemed characterised by a raving madness. His aged grandfather endeavoured to speak to the dying youth about his soul. "Begone, begone, and let me alone," was the only response that could be obtained. And such wailing! After death had closed the scene, the miller, a man of God, as he returned with me to the mill, remarked that not a shadow of hope of a change for the better did that youth leave behind him. I went home from that scene a more serious, if not a better, youth. I was not, in any sense, profane or immoral, like that youth; yet, like him, I was, as I well knew, in the accepted sense of the term, a sinner under condemnation to eternal death. No one who has not had similar experience, can conceive the fearful terror often awakened in my mind at the thought of dying in sin. Such impressions were deepened by a remark which a neighbour—the profanest man I ever knew—made about that time to the deacon of our church. The latter had occasion, one hot summer's day, to call upon this man. Finding him hoeing corn, and perceiving that the row he was on terminated at the road where the deacon was standing, the latter waited until the man came up. Having finished his row, the poor man threw down his hoe, and wiping the dripping perspiration from his face, exclaimed, "Deacon Branch, is not this hard—to be obliged to toil like a slave all one's life, and go to hell at last? Tell me, is not this hard?" "Yes," the thought often passed through my mind, "to go to hell at last, that is the end of a life of sin ! Will my life thus terminate?"
About this time reports of revivals of religion of wonderful power in various parts of the country reached us, particularly in the eastern States under Mr. Nettleton and others; and the impression came over me that I should soon be in the midst of such an ingathering. I then began to hear the words repeated, "The one shall be taken, and the other left." With what impressiveness did the question often present itself, "Shall I be among the happy number that shall be taken, or among the non-elect who shall be left to die in their sins? "
Such were the religious impressions to which I was subject prior to my conversion, and which were preparatory to that event; impressions which became deeper, and more and more frequent, as I grew in years. And what was the result upon my life and character? This is a very important inquiry. Many would naturally infer, that I was "not far from the kingdom of God." Instead of this, aside from the fact that I was chargeable with no form of immorality, vice, or crime, I sincerely doubt whether there was, in all the world, a more godless youth than I was. After I had ceased to offer the Lord's Prayer at my mother's knee, I had never uttered a word or sentence in prayer to God. I had never, even in thought, thanked Him for a blessing received, or confessed or asked forgiveness for a single sin, or sought a favour at the hands of my Maker. I had never raised the question, even in thought, as to whether what I did, or neglected to do, was pleasing or displeasing to Him, or made the thought of pleasing or displeasing Him a motive for any act I had put forth, or refrained from putting forth. Nor had I ever raised the inquiry, "What shall I do to be saved?" or exercised a thought or put forth an act relatively to that end, or made the deep religious impressions to which I was so often subject a motive for any such thought or act. Nor did the conviction ever, for a moment, have place in my mind, that my interior or outer life ought, in any respect, to be, or to have been, different from what it was. No religious impression to which I was subject ever induced in my mind anything approaching the conviction of duty, obligation, or moral desert. My conscience, as far as any such convictions are concerned, was, as I have before said, as dead within me as if it had not existed at all. A thick and impenetrable veil was ever before my mind, rendering the entrance of such convictions impossible. How, it may be asked, was such a life possible? If we should recur to the religious teachings with which my mind was saturated during all those years, the question is answered at once. According to what is absolutely affirmed in the Confession of Faith and the Catechisms, and what I absolutely believed, the following immutable facts were true of me in my unregenerate state; I having had no choice or agency whatever in inducing the state under consideration. I. It was utterly impossible for me to will or to do anything right or good, and not to will and do what is sinful, or to will or do anything to procure any Divine influence enabling me to refuse the evil and choose the good. 2. It was absolutely impossible for me to accept the offers of grace in the Gospel, until after I was "quickened and renewed by the Holy Ghost," a change in which I was "altogether passive." 3. The number of those who were to be thus "effectually called," was from eternity so fixed and predetermined that it could by no possibility be "either increased or diminished." Granting all this to be true, why should I attempt to will or do the good, or not to will or do the evil, when the attempt itself would be nothing but sin? Why should I pray, when the service itself would be in the sight of God nothing but an abomination? How could the conviction have place in my conscience, that I ought to perform a revealed and recognised impossibility? Granting these doctrines to be true, we can no more conceive that unregenerate man, until God, in the exercise of His sovereignty, has made him the subject of "effectual calling," can be under any obligation to become holy, than we can conceive of the annihilation of space, or of an event without a cause.
CHAPTER II.
MY CONVICTION AND CONVERSION.
THE month in which I became seventeen years of age, I received the appointment to teach the winter school in a district in an adjacent town, my schoolhouse being just four miles from my father's residence. The district was composed almost entirely of Christian families who had emigrated from the eastern States, and nearly all of whom belonged to the same denomination as my parents. When I had been in my school a sufficient time to see it in successful operation, with the fairest prospect of a reputable termination of this my first public effort of any kind, I said to myself distinctly, and in so many words, "I have no desire, either for this world or the next, to be more completely happy than I now am." From my earliest recollection the cherished object of my being had been a liberal education, and the subsequent occupancy of the sphere of an educated man. To give me such an education my parents were wholly unable. All I asked or desired was the privilege of working out for myself the end so supremely valued; and I had left home with the understanding that after my father had received this one winter's wages, I might go for myself. A clearer and brighter sky never, I believe, opened before the imagination of any youth than that which now rose over my future career. But this brightness was not of long continuance. Thoughts of an eternal future began to drop one after another into my mind and that with a force and impressiveness never before experienced. As a consequence my Bible was read with greater frequency and interest than formerly. At a single sitting one evening I read through the entire book of Revelation. No definite impression was made upon my mind by such reading. A more habitual thoughtfulness was induced, however, and a more sombre hue was imparted to the atmosphere above and around me. Reports of revivals of religion became at this time more frequent than ever before, and these, more than any other causes, deepened my serious impressions. At a conference meeting in the district one evening, a long letter was read giving an account of a revival of great power in the place from which several of the families present had emigrated. The impression upon my mind amounted to agony. As there was no movement at the time among the people around, such impressions passed away, deepening, however, the general thoughtfulness of my mind. One cause of the unusual impressions to which I was subject at this time was, as I afterwards learned, what was passing between the spirit of my mother and God at my home. Immediately on my leaving, the question of my eternal interests seemed to occupy all her thoughts. Whenever she approached the throne of grace, this was the great object of her petitions, the almost insupportable burden of her prayers. I was her only son, and, with the exception of a young sister, her only child then living. What an infinite blessing is a praying mother!
Immediately after commencing my school, I formed an intimate acquaintance with a young man in the place, much older than myself, who was the son of the leading deacon of the church, and led the young people in all amusements and worldly conversation. While his influence over me was very fascinating, it was far from healthful, as he often made, not only Christians, but religion itself, a subject of jesting. In a short time, however, he had occasion to be absent from home for several weeks. On his return I immediately called upon him, and was strangely impressed with a mysterious change in his appearance. Instead of the jocular reception which I expected, he barely shook hands with me, and appeared almost incapable of entering into conversation of any kind. I left him at once, wondering what had occurred. On returning home on Saturday afternoon, my mother at once put the inquiry to me: "Is young Mr. Walker under concern of mind? I have heard," she remarked, "that it is so." I replied that I had heard nothing upon the subject; that I had seen him but once since his return, and that his appearance was such as to indicate that what she had heard might be true. The next day I made an excuse and stayed at home from the meetings, spending my time in study, which I had already begun, with reference to a liberal education. On the return of the family, at the close of the afternoon service, I put away my books and retired to my room. As soon as my mother entered the house, and without waiting to lay aside any of her outer garments, she came to me and said, "Young Mr. Walker is under very deep concern of mind. He came up with a company of young people and spoke in the conference meeting in our schoolhouse last week, avowed his determination to lead a new life hereafter, and exhorted all, the youth present especially, to follow his example." The effect upon my mind was indescribable. The impression came over me with overpowering weight that I was actually in the midst of a revival of religion, and that I should soon know whether I was among the number who were "predestinated unto everlasting life," or among the doomed class who were "foreordained to everlasting death." I returned to my school in an agony of apprehension which rendered it very difficult for me to get through the services of the day. At the close, after my scholars had retired and I was left alone, I found my anguish so excruciating that I cried aloud, "O that I could weep!" But the fountain of tears was utterly dry. Under a despairing impression that I should do what I had never before even attempted to do, that is, to pray, I at length got upon my knees in the presence of my Maker, but I found myself wholly unable to give expression to a single word or syllable, the fountain of utterance, as well as of tears, having entirely dried up. As I arose from my knees after a considerable period, a strange revulsion occurred in my feelings. With a desperate determination I said to myself, "I will have no more to do with this subject."
In this state of mind, I retired to my lodgings. In the course of the evening, having listened to a religious conversation between my friend Walker and a company of young people, all my former impressions returned with accumulated force. I now resolved never again to resist religious impressions, but to do all that was possible on my part to render "my calling and election sure." The next evening, by special invitation, I, with a brother of his, had a long interview with my friend Walker. He gave us an account of a very powerful revival of religion in the place where he had been, of his own religious impressions, and of the new and blessed life upon which he had entered. After an earnest exhortation to us to seek the great salvation which he had attained, he commended himself and us to God in prayer. As we rose from our knees, he turned to me, reminded me of our special friendship for each other, exhorted me to follow his footsteps in the way of life and peace, and expressed the earnest hope and desire that hereafter our faces should not be set in opposite directions. "Friend Walker," I replied, "will you not continue to pray for me?
From that moment, I had no wish or desire to conceal from any being in existence the fact that I was a serious and earnest inquirer after the salvation of my soul. I immediately sought interviews with the most intelligent and devout believers in the community, and desired them to tell me their experience from the time when they became subject to such impressions, up to the period of their "effectual calling," and especially what immediately preceded, accompanied, and followed that great change. To no one—with a seeming exception to be stated hereafter—did I put the inquiry at all, "What must I do to be saved?" the definite doctrinal views of all concerned rendering such an inquiry an absurdity. From the moment when I fully determined to give my whole being up to this one subject, the conviction became absolute in my mind, that as this one visitation should terminate, such would inevitably be my life and my eternal future. The object of all my inquiries was to determine, as well as I might, what would be the issue of this turning crisis of my existence, whether I was likely to be the subject of "the effectual call;" and if so, how near I probably was to it, and how I might know that it had occurred, should it occur at all. The exclusive burden of thought and inquiry with me was, not what I should do, but what God, in the fulfilment of an eternal decree, would do in my case. Nor did any individual intimate to me that my inquiries were wrongly directed, neither was anything said, during that revival, to induce any one to imagine that the question of his soul's eternity rested upon his own free choice of life or death. Instead of being told to "look to Jesus," I was told, as already stated, that if I was not one of the elect, my salvation was impossible. The only practical counsels we did receive were such as these: "Avoid vain company and worldly conversation and reading," "Do not resist, or try to banish, your religious impressions," "Cherish your convictions," "If you can do nothing else, this you can do, put yourselves in the way of saving influences." How wonderful is the influence of false doctrine in veiling from the thought and heart the plainest and most express teachings of the Word of God; teachings which everywhere lift their Divinely illumined summits heaven-high amid the great revelations around them! What are these teachings? We turn to the Old Testament, and there read, "See, I have set before thee this day life and good, death and evil." "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live." "This commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off." "The word is very nigh thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it." See Rom. x. 6—9. "Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth." "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon."
As we stand before the open gate into the New Testament, the first object that opens upon our vision is "the Lamb of God Who taketh away the sin of the world," our "Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous," Who "is the propitiation for our sins" (the sins of believers): "and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." Hence His early testimony in regard to Himself: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in Him might not perish, but have eternal life." Here we are absolutely taught that salvation is just as free and possible to every sinner, as was healing to those dying Israelites, after the serpent was lifted up in their presence. As soon as that all-healing power was manifested, the universal cry of the people around was, "Look to the brazen serpent, look to the brazen serpent." So the united cry of all believers to dying sinners should be, "Look to Jesus, and receive eternal life through Him." And all doctrines and religious teachings which do not represent salvation through Christ as thus free and universally available, veil Christ from "the world of sinners lost." "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink." "And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Such is Christ's Gospel, as preached by Himself. When convicted souls at the Pentecost said unto Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Men and brethren what shall we do?" the answer was ready and specific: "Repent, and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." It took those despairing souls thus instructed but a few moments to step out of the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of God. When the trembling jailor, prostrate before Paul and Silas, cried out, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" these inspired men of God did not talk to him about "eternal and unconditional election," but answered his question directly: "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." As the result of speaking the word of the Lord to him, and to all that were in his house, they were all before morning joyfully baptised believers in Jesus.
Instead of being thus led directly to Christ, how often is the inquirer utterly bewildered and left for long periods, it may be, to wander on in the deep gloom of despair, through doctrines and teachings which involve "the glorious Gospel of the blessed God" in deep eclipse! I know, for example, a Scotch lady of great intelligence, who, while under the pastorate of a widely known preacher of the Scotch Church, and encircled with the leading lights of the same, wandered on for fifteen years in blank despair, all the while brooding over the question whether she was or was not one of the elect. From none of these teachers, to all of whom she again and again made known her case, could she obtain a ray of real light, nor from one of them was the Biblical answer to the question, "What must I do to be saved?" even hinted to her. All that they could say was that if she was one of the elect she would, without fail, at some future time be the subject of "the effectual call," and that if she was "not elected," her salvation was impossible. At length she providentially fell under the teaching of a preacher of another order, by whom JESUS was preached to her. Under such ministrations upon the deep midnight of her soul "the Sun of Righteousness arose with healing in His wings." Since that good hour many, very many, lost souls have been saved through her instrumentality. One of the most celebrated preachers in Christendom, bewildered and joyless, was induced by the sudden approach of a violent shower, when on his way to his own place of worship, to step aside into an obscure Primitive Methodist chapel. Here the way of salvation through faith in Christ was made plain to his mind, and he went his way "rejoicing in hope of the glory of God." Dr. Chalmers often had most impressive intuitions of "this new and living way," as God has revealed it, in contrast with "the hard doctrines" so commonly taught in the Church to which he belonged. Under the power of such an intuition, he, on one occasion, thus addressed his theological class—our informant having taken down his words as he uttered them: "Young gentlemen," he exclaimed with the deepest emotion, "were the inhabitants of one of our villages inquiring what they must do to be saved, I would much prefer sending to them two of your 'ignorant' Methodist preachers, who would tell them the way of life and salvation through faith in Christ, than to send one of these learned divines who is so deeply steeped in orthodoxy that he cannot preach to them a full and a free salvation."
To return from this digression. No ray of light reaching me from any source around me, I wandered on in a state of mental anguish which rendered me a spectacle of wonder to my pupils and the whole community about me. At the commencement of the revival, the pastor who preached alternately in the church in the town where I was teaching school, and in that where my parents lived, was prostrated with a sickness of which he afterwards died. The work for some time, consequently, went on without any ministerial help. At length a missionary, who had several times put up at my father's residence, and for whom I felt much esteem, came into the place where I was. With him I at once sought an interview, in the hope of obtaining some light upon the way I should take. After I had stated my case, he simply repeated to me what others had said before. At length, with indescribable agony, I exclaimed, "What SHALL I do?" With a cold severity which shocked my whole being, he replied, "You must repent," and manifested a desire to discontinue the conversation. Had he smitten me in the face, I should not have thought myself more flagrantly insulted than I did by that reply. He knew, and I knew full well, that, according to the doctrines we both held, repentance, faith, and all Christian duties were to me utter impossibilities, until after the great change should be wrought in me through "the effectual call;" and that my only proper concern at the moment, if that doctrine were true, was about that change and that call, and not about duties which would follow their occurrence.
After that interview I passed a full week amid "the blackness of darkness" of blank despair. During this entire period, had I been possessed of all the world, I would freely have parted with it for the privilege of shedding a single tear; but not a tear, during all that time, moistened my eye or my cheek. With what agony did I then continuously revolve the thought, "O that the decree of election might be gone over again! that God would consent to reconsider my case ! It might be that He would then include me among the elect. But no; my doom is fixed. From eternity I was foreordained to eternal death, and God will never reverse that decree." At length my power to endure positive mental agony gave way, and my mind settled down into the thick gloom of fixed despondency.
At this time, I went home and spent a night there. My desire was to prepare my mother for a future which to me appeared inevitable. I told her that I was absolutely assured that I was not one of the elect, and that consequently this period of religious awakening would pass away, and leave me a hopeless, reckless reprobate. To this she must make up her mind. She mast expect to see her son, hereafter, one of the most recklessly wicked reprobates on earth. She insisted that I was already converted. "No," I replied, "that change is not for me." When I took leave of her in the morning, I said to her, and that with strong crying and tears, "I have but one desire, and that is to be a Christian. I would readily give all the world, did I possess it, to be what you are. For me, however, there is no hope. My doom is fixed, and God won't reverse it."
Immediately after this a change occurred in my experience; a change which I have ever regarded as, if not miraculous, yet altogether supernatural.
The Great Change.
While I was desponding in the settled gloom above described, God, by His Spirit, became a directly and personally manifested Presence to my mind. I had an absolute intuition of Him, an intuition direct and immediate, as infinitely pure, true, just, good, and pertect, as loving me with a love absolutely ineffable, as ever having thus loved me, and as having ever been more than ready to receive me, pardon all my sins, and bless me with His eternal favour, had I, as I might have done, sought Him, inquired after Him, given myself to Him, confessed to Him my sins and sought pardon at His hands. Of no facts had I ever before been so impressively conscious as I then was of all these Divinely manifested verities. At the same time and with equal distinctness, I was made to know myself as I was and had been. In the mirror of the Divine purity, perfection, love, and grace, my whole moral life stood revealed with, absolute distinctness to my own mind. From all the infinite and ineffable purity, excellency, and love, now unveiled to my apprehension, I had ever been in voluntary and criminal estrangement. I had never sought to know God, my Maker and Redeemer, had never sought His favour, or cared at all whether my life and conduct were pleasing or displeasing to Him. I had never, even in thought, entertained a sentiment or emotion of gratitude for favours received, or regret for aggravated violation of His will. All this had been true, while the opposite might have been true. Of all this I was rendered distinctly and absolutely conscious. Now, for the first time in my life, the idea of moral desert entered my mind, and the idea of ill-desert combined with that of sin. In a moment I recognised myself as not only under condemnation to eternal death, but as absolutely deserving that doom, and as deserving nothing less and nothing else than this. In degree of criminal desert I seemed to myself for a considerable time to stand alone under the eye of God. I distinctly thought upon the subject, and for a considerable time sincerely believed that no being in existence could be as guilty and hell-deserving as I was. Several weeks transpired before I fully dared to entertain the assurance that such criminality could be forgiven. I saw myself "in the hands of the living God," without a solitary excuse for my sin, or the remotest claim to the Divine clemency. While I saw myself thus and dared not hope for pardon, I had no desire to be out of God's hands, and entertained a perfect resignation that He should dispose of me as His infinite wisdom and love should dictate. To all around me I said distinctly, "I have no fear that I shall receive at the hands of my God anything worse than I deserve. If I am condemned as I deserve to be, I will stand before God and the universe, and affirm my doom to be just." These were the identical sentiments to which I gave distinct and frequent utterance. I was not then aware that such a state is incompatible with anything but a direct interest in the infinite grace and mercy of God. No one who has not had a similar experience can conceive the utter abhorrence with which I regarded the life which I had, up to that time, lived before God. The thought of perdition, as I have said in another book, was not so fearful to my mind as a continuance in alienation and estrangement from such a Being.
In this state of mind—to quote from my former work—when alone with God, I bowed the knee before Him and confessed that I had no right to ask or expect any favour at His hands, and that my whole eternity hung upon His mere grace and mercy. One favour I would venture to ask, that I might be kept from ever returning to that state of alienation from Him in which my life had been spent, and that I might have grace to appreciate His love, excellence, and glory; to love and venerate Him, and have a sacred respect for His will. If He would grant me this, I would accept of anything in time and eternity that He might appoint me. This was the exact substance and form of that prayer. I had no sooner pronounced these words than I was consciously encircled in the " everlasting arms." I was so overshadowed with a sense of the manifested love of a forgiving God and Saviour that my whole mental being seemed to be dissolved and pervaded with an ineffable quietude and assurance. I arose from my knees without a doubt that I was an adopted member of the family of God. With "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding," pervading every department of my mental nature, I could look upward, and, without a cloud between my soul and the face of God, could and did exclaim, "My Father and my God!" Such was my entrance into the inner life.
While there are important differences, there are essential resemblances between my own case and that of Colonel Gardiner. Each was brought to see his great sinfulness and desert of eternal doom, not by a direct showing of the sin itself, but through a supernatural manifestation of God to the mind. The manifestation came to him when meditating a great crime, and waiting the designated hour for its perpetration, and to me when in fixed despondency about my eternal state. The manifestation to him seemed to be external and visible—Christ dying upon the cross for his sins. The manifestation to me was wholly internal and spiritual,—God in His purity and love personally made manifest to my mind. What was common to the two cases was this: in the light of the manifestation each saw his moral life as it was and had been, and the infinitude of the guilt, criminality, and hell-desert of that life. Each, too, had an intuition equally absolute of the fact, that his life might have been, and ought to have been, the opposite of what it had been. The manifestation to Colonel Gardiner was on this wise. The company with whom he had been spending the evening broke up about eleven. Exactly at twelve he had an assignation with a married woman. To while away the interval he engaged in reading a book. While so doing he thought he saw an unusual light fall on the book. "Lifting up his eyes, as he apprehended, to his extreme amazement, there was before him, as it were suspended in the air, a visible representation of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross, surrounded on all sides with glory; and he was impressed as if a voice had come to him to this effect, 'O, sinner! did I suffer this for thee, and are these the returns?" Throughout that night he did not once "recollect that criminal and detestable assignation which had before engrossed all his thoughts." After sitting for a while, as if there remained hardly any life in him, he ran and walked to and fro in his chamber, appearing to himself the vilest monster in existence, because he had all his lifetime been crucifying Christ afresh by his sins. Thus he saw the horror of what he had done. With this was connected such a view of the majesty and goodness of God as caused him to loathe and abhor himself and to repent as in dust and ashes. "After I had that astonishing sight I had of my blessed Lord," says Colonel Gardiner, "the terrible condition in which I was proceeded not so much from the terrors of the law, as from a sense of having been so ungrateful a monster to Him Whom I thought I saw pierced for my transgressions." So, in my own case, after the personal manifestation which God made to me of His purity, glory, and love, the fear of eternal doom, the fear which had occupied a supreme position before, had little place in my mind. My whole being, on the other hand, was occupied with the infinitude of the criminality and loathsomeness of a life of voluntary and horrible estrangement from such a Being.
Let us now consider two truths of fundamental importance, suggested and impressed upon our minds by the two cases before us.
Essential Truths suggested by these Cases.
I. The nature of the work of the Spirit in convicting of sin here claims our special attention. In such conviction there is always induced, not a mere dread of eternal doom, but a distinctly conscious desert of that doom; and this sense of criminal desert will mainly occupy the mind. This sense of desert of doom, let me add, is always induced, as a matter of fact, by rendering the mind distinctly conscious of its past voluntary relations to God. In the case of Colonel Gardiner and myself, for example, the Spirit, in showing us our sins, and our desert of eternal doom, did not at all present Adam's sin as imputed to us, or the fact that we "deserve God's wrath and curse both in this life and that which is to come" on account of a fallen nature, in the origination and constitution of which we had no more agency than we had in Adam's first sin. On the other hand, this conscious desert of doom is always, in all cases, induced by a manifestation of God in His relations of Creator and Redeemer, and of the sinner in his life of voluntary estrangement from the Author of his being and life. "When He (the Spirit) is come," says our Saviour, "He shall reprove (convict) the world of sin." "Of sin, because"—of what? Because of Adam's sin imputed to us, or of a fallen nature innocently by us derived from Adam? No. "Of sin, because they believed not on Me." "This is the condemnation," the reason why men will be condemned—not that they are held doomed to endure "God's wrath and curse" for anything in the origination and constitution of which they had no choice or agency at all; but "that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." Not for the constitution of the body, nor for the nature we had when put into the body, but "for the deeds done in the body" are we to be judged at the great day. And the Spirit shows these deeds, and these only, when He convicts of sin and its desert; and here, and here only, sin is found. Any teacher of truth who teaches that our real sin is found anywhere else than in our "deeds done in the body," wholly misinterprets the Word of God, and the work of the Spirit. When the Spirit shows us our evil propensities, He shows us not sin, but causes and occasions of sin, causes which are to be removed "by the renewing of the Holy Ghost."
2. We are now prepared to state the immutable conditions on which the conscious desert of doom can by any possibility have place in the mind. This conscious desert can arise but in view of what we consciously have been, and consciously might have been. That was the exact light in which my life of sin was set before me by the Spirit of God. I was not rendered more absolutely conscious of what my life had been, than I was of the fact that it might have been, and consequently ought to have been, the opposite of what it had been. Such were the convictions induced in the mind of Colonel Gardiner, and such are the convictions induced in every mind which the Spirit of God convicts of sin.
"Of all the words of tongue or pen,
The saddest word, It might have been."
Take from the spirits in the eternal prison their absolute consciousness that they might not have been where they are, and that they might have been in the kingdom of light, and you extract from hell, not its despair, but all its remorse, all its conscious desert of doom. Induce in any being the fixed and absolute conviction that, whatever his moral life may have been, no other form of life was possible to him, and that that life could not but have been as it was and what it was, and the conviction of the desert of doom is absolutely impossible to him.
CHAPTER III.
EARLY STEPS HEAVENWARD.
THE saintly life, as God has revealed it, has two sides, namely, a Godward and a manward side; the latter including the Church and the world. The Church, as God has portrayed and ordained her, is not a hospital for invalids, but "an army with banners," a sacramental host, marshalled for world conquest under the mighty Conqueror "who hath upon His vesture and on His thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS."
This sacred host is marshalled, armed and equipped, to "fight against sin," and "the weapons of its warfare are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds." Not a single soldier in the army of the Lord ever needs to say, "I am sick," or to be laid up in a hospital on account of sin-wounds received from the world, the flesh, or the devil. All in common are privileged to be clad in an armour and covered with a shield by which ALL "the fiery darts of the wicked shall be quenched," and to wield "a sharp two-edged sword," with which "one shall chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight." All this is unqualifiedly true. What less than this can our Saviour mean when He says, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father"? Every solitary believer in Jesus is privileged, and most sacredly bound, to be endued with all the" power from on high," "signs" excepted, which the apostles and their associates received at the Pentecost, to be as "full of faith and of the Holy Ghost" as they were, and to possess in actual fruition ALL that our Saviour meant when He said, "He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." At no period of his Christian life can "the believer be so readily prepared to receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost," and thus to be "filled with all the fulness of God," as during the period of his "first love." His consecration to Christ is then supreme, his "hunger and thirst after righteousness" subordinate in his mind all other desires, and his faith is so simple and childlike that he will readily receive "the things which are freely given us of God," as soon as he clearly apprehends them. But when these primal joys have faded out, and the mind has become habituated to a state in which it "walks in darkness and has no light," and has come to think, perhaps, that God has "reserved" no "better things for us" in this life, how difficult it is for the believer, in the midst of all his worldly entanglements, to get back into that childlike faith in which he will "receive with meekness the engrafted word!"
Those joyful converts in Samaria needed but to be "instructed in the way of the Lord," to be fully prepared to receive the Holy Ghost under the hands of Peter and John. Not six months had passed after Paul, with Silas and Timothy, had spent but three Sabbaths in Thessalonica, before a fully organised church of Christ existed there, with pastors, and teachers, and prophets, and a membership so "full of faith and of the Holy Ghost," that from them "sounded out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place this faith to Godward was spread abroad," so that Paul and his associates had no occasion to return there to "speak anything." Were all converts "instructed in the way of the Lord," as they were then, instead of appearing as they do now, "a feeble folk," sickly, and unable to "fly or go," they would everywhere be seen "girded with everlasting strength," "holding forth the word of life," and ready and "able to endure hardness as good soldiers of Christ."
In illustration and verification of these statements, permit me to refer to my own case. I can here "speak what I do know, and testify what I have seen." At the time described at the close of the last chapter, when I became distinctly conscious of my acceptance with God, so completely dead had I become to all worldly hopes, desires, and ambitions, that, having no apprehension that I could ever attain to a qualification to preach the Gospel, I gave up wholly all thought of a liberal education. I returned home, on the contrary, with no higher aspirations or expectations than to serve God in the humble sphere of a "tiller of the ground." One desire fully and consciously possessed my whole being,—the desire to be, in all my activities, in perfect harmony with the will of God. Even perdition, as I have already said, was not so dreadful to me as was the idea of a return to the old life which I had abandoned. What I supremely and specifically desired was,—deadness, total and entire, to that life. The least appearance of a worldward or sinward tendency would instantly startle me, and drive me to my closet. When the thought that I might glorify my God and Saviour by occupying the sphere of a preacher of the Gospel was suggested by another person, and presented as practicable, it was received with perfect ecstasy. I am absolutely conscious that I have not overdrawn a single feature or element of my moral and spiritual state at the time referred to.
Suppose, now, that at this period some Aquila and Priscilla had "instructed me in the way of the Lord more perfectly" than I had ever been taught it before; that, after expounding to me the true import of my calling as a saint of God, they had fully set before me the scene of the Pentecost, and then showed that by absolute promise of God, a promise to be received by faith, just as that of pardon had been, I was, as a believer in Jesus, entitled to expect to receive, for my life-mission and work, all the moral and spiritual enduements of power that the apostles and their associates, then and there, received for theirs, and to be rendered as "full of faith and of the Holy Ghost" as they were; that it is as clearly and distinctly a revealed part of the mission of Christ to " baptize with the Holy Ghost," as it is to "take away sin;" that the Spirit, when given, would "strengthen me with might in the inner man, that Christ might dwell in my heart by faith, that I, being rooted and grounded in love, might comprehend the breadth, and depth, and length, and height, and know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, and be filled with all the fulness of God;" that by the Spirit "the eyes of my understanding would be enlightened, that I might know the things which are freely given me of God," and "behold with open face, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, and be changed into the same image from glory to glory;" that through the Spirit I should be indwelt by Christ as He was indwelt by the Father; that Christ and the Father would then come to me, and make Their abode with me, my fellowship being with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ; and that, as the result, I should ever find myself "complete in Christ," "His grace," at all times, and in all circumstances, "being sufficient for me," while God would "make all grace abound toward" me, so that I, "having always all sufficiency for all things, should abound unto every good work." Suppose that all these clearly revealed privileges had been distinctly set before me at that time, would I not as eagerly and as readily have laid hold of them as did those young converts in Samaria, and those twelve believers whom Paul met at Ephesus? Should I have wandered, as I did, during those eighteen years, amid the dim twilight of a semi-faith, conscious that I had somewhere missed my way, and often crying out, "O that I knew where I might find Him!" No, reader. Had I known these things during the period of my primal religious life, for the past sixty-five, instead of the past forty-seven years, "the Lord would have been to me an everlasting light, and my God my glory."
So would it be with young converts generally, were they early instructed, as they should be, and as primitive converts were. A friend of mine stated to me that when travelling in Scotland some years since, he met with a lady who, as illustrative of the hallowed influence of the doctrine under consideration, gave him this account of certain facts of her own observation and experience. She had been, during the prior revivals, instrumental in the conversion of twelve young ladies in the families around her. These individuals consequently looked to her as their spiritual adviser. When they were all with her at one time, each one of them told her that her religious life was not at all satisfactory to her own mind; that she seemed to be sliding backward rather than advancing, and to be growing weaker and weaker rather than stronger and stronger. Having stated these facts, they asked her if there was no remedy. She then set before them the great truth under consideration. They unitedly sought and obtained "the promise of the Spirit." "As the result," said the lady, "they are all, every one of them, walking in the peace and light of God." It is sad to think of a convert who was "born out of due time." It is far sadder to think of one born where the darkness has not passed away, and the true light does not shine.
During the period of my primal joy and love, while I was ignorant of "the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory," I did take some steps heavenward, steps which gave character to my whole subsequent Christian life, and led finally to my entrance into this higher light in which I have walked for the past forty-seven years. Permit me now to illustrate these statements by referring to a few examples.
The First Great Conflict and Victory.
I have already referred to the fact that the consciousness of the least desire drawing me earthward or sinward startled me with instant alarm, and drove me to my knees. We here strike upon a principle of fundamental importance in the Christian life. Many believers, under the presence of such desires, enter into a direct conflict with them, supposing that they are thus fighting "the good fight." Others neglect such desires, leaving them to die out of themselves. In either case there is a very dangerous mistake. Temptations thus resisted, or left to pass away of themselves, are sure to return with greater power, and to find us in greater weakness than at the first encounter. Ere long we shall be "brought into captivity to the law of sin which is in our members." We must fight or fall, and conquer or be taken captive. To be conquerors, and especially to be "more than conquerors," we must not "go a warfare at our own charges." Ours must be a "fight of faith." "Whom resist steadfast in the faith." Every temptation or sinward desire should be instantly taken to Christ, and put into His hands; and power for a permanent victory will be instantly given.
I will here adduce an example which occurred much later in life. One day, on opening a letter, I saw before me a demand for a sum of money which I did not feel able to pay. The demand I knew, and the individual presenting it knew, to be absolutely fraudulent. Yet, not knowing what he would swear to, and whom he might get to swear for him, I concluded that I should be obliged to meet the demand. The sudden occurrence of such an event produced no little inward agitation. Then and there I instantly lifted my heart to God, and said, "Lord, here is a new department of my nature addressed. I ask Thee to take all this inward perturbation away, and to induce in its stead a state of mind in which, if I am defrauded, I shall 'take joyfully the spoiling of my goods.'" That prayer was instantly answered. All internal perturbation disappeared; and had I been compelled to pay that fraudulent claim, it would not have cost me a mental pang. Some time after this, all the available funds I had in the world for life-support, several thousand dollars, funds which had been entrusted to certain individuals for safe keeping and investment, were appropriated by them and put beyond my reach. Not a ripple did these events stir upon the surface of my mind. "In the world ye shall have tribulation." "In Me ye shall have peace." So I found it, and so have I ever found it, since "the joy of the Lord became my strength." He that "casts all his cares upon the Lord " will "be careful for nothing," but "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep his heart and mind by Christ Jesus."
In Out of Darkness into Light I refer to one great and decisive "trial of faith" which I had in my early Christian life. I recur to this event here on account of its essential bearing upon all that has since followed. The occasion was the day of the State and town elections, which occurred in early spring. That was the great gala day of the year, ordinary labour being wholly suspended, and the mass of the youth of my own age, and younger lads, always meeting at the place where the elections were held; that place being in the immediate vicinity of my father's residence, and directly under my eye wherever I moved. When I saw my former associates engaged in their wild sports, in which I had ever before so intensely delighted and very much excelled, it seemed as if the concentrated powers of "the world, the flesh, and the devil," in their accumulated strength, were brought to bear upon my young and susceptible mind, to induce me to join that company, and in doing so to make a final choice of the worldly instead of the religious life. As soon as I was at liberty to leave home, having the day free to myself I took my Bible and went into the forest far out of sight and hearing of the causes of my temptation. There I spent the day reading the Sacred Word, in meditation, and prayer. The result of thus seeking "grace to help in time of need" was not only deliverance from the temptation which then beset me, but a life-deadness to sinful pleasures in all their forms. From that time to the present I have not felt the least drawing towards any form of amusement not conscientiously regarded as healthy and compatible with the Christian life in its divinest forms. The dogma is quite commonly entertained that our old nature, indwelling sins, are never in this life eradicated, but remain to "war in our members," and to be warred against. Here we have an example of the utter eradication of one such indwelling sin; and if one may be got rid of, why may not "our old man," that is, the old nature, "be crucified with Him, that the body of sin" (indwelling sin in all its forms) "be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin?" But this was not the only heavenward step that I took there in that wilderness. My whole Christian character then and there assumed a positive form. It had been chiefly negative before, being contemplative and not active, devotional and not aggressive. I left that forest a consciously dedicated servant of Christ, dedicated for one specific calling, to "win souls," and felt myself under an enduement of power for that service.
Soon after this I spent several days in the place where I was converted, going there to witness the public examination of the converts, and their reception into the church on the Sabbath. While there, the father of my friend Walker questioned me about my plans for the future. On my telling him that I had no definite plan in mind, he replied that the ministry was the sphere to which I was manifestly called, and that I should at once set about a preparation for it. My response was, that such a sphere appeared to me so high and sacred that it did not seem that I could ever be deemed worthy of it. In the course of the conversation, however, I was fully convinced that my venerable adviser was right. The conviction, as I have stated, was received with perfect ecstasy, which excited the wonder and pleasure of all who were present. From that hour I set my face with singleness of purpose towards this high calling. In the meantime I set about winning souls from the world around me. Nor were my labours in vain in the Lord. Before I had completed my first year in College, I had taught four winter schools, all but one of which were occasions of powerful revivals of religion. Some six or eight months of one year, during my preparatory course, I spent in a society where, under a regular ministry, there had been no revival for very many years. At Midsummer I proposed to four or five young men, Christians like myself, that we should meet in a private room one evening each week for prayer and religious conversation. All the meetings were strictly private, and intended to be such. Individuals outside, however, soon heard that God was with us, and sought admission to our circle. Soon the place became too crowded, and we were necessitated to adjourn to the large schoolhouse in the village. Not more than two or three months had passed, before the pastor came in and found a crowded audience there. He then told us with tears how that, for nearly twenty years past, himself and the members of his church had been mourning over the want of revival influence in the community, and how his heart was now rejoiced at the prospect of a great in-gathering of souls. The work thus commenced continued during the winter, and a great and general revival was the result. I state such facts for the sake of admonishing all candidates for the ministry, who may fall in with these lines, that if they put off the work of "winning souls" until their so-called education is completed, their life-ministry will, in all probability, be comparatively barren of saving results. The celebrated revivalist, Dr. Nettleton, was hardly more devoted to the work of saving souls after he entered the ministry, than he was while preparing for it. What very deeply affected my mind, when I became a member of a Theological Seminary, was the manifest fact, that among the one hundred or more young men around me but few seemed to have any thought of doing anything in the direction under consideration, until after their education was completed. A few were ever looking out for opportunities to "persuade men," and laboured in revivals of religion whenever they could find them. These, with no known exceptions, had great power in "winning souls," as preachers of the everlasting Gospel. I have heard of very few souls saved under the ministry of the other class. Delaying, till some future time, active and aggressive work for Christ implies present want of grace in the heart, a want which the exercise of the ministerial functions is not likely at all to remove.
Assurance: Witness of the Spirit.
The Scriptures speak of "assurance of faith," "assurance of hope," and "assurance of understanding." To the manner in which I early entered into the full possession and enjoyment of "assurance of hope," an assurance in the light and consolation of which I have lived and walked ever since, it may be well to refer very briefly in this connection. I have already spoken of the utter horror and reprobation with which I from the first regarded the utterly godless life which I had led during the period of my unregeneracy, and of the place which that sentiment held in my mind at the time when I obtained full assurance of my acceptance with God. That I might be kept for ever from returning to that reprobated life, and that I might ever be pre- served in a state of supreme and sacred respect for the character and will of God, became with me the subject of constant, long-continued, and most fervent prayer. Whenever "I bowed my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," this was the leading burden of my prayer. At length I received a perfect inward assurance that I should have grace to "hold the beginning of my confidence steadfast unto the end." With this assurance the sentiment that I could "live after the flesh, and not die;" that I could sin, and not incur the proper penalty of sin; or that I could be kept without watchfulness and prayer on my part,—had no place whatever. Nor was it a mere assurance that I should be saved at last. It was the full assurance that I should be "kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation." This is "the full assurance of hope" in which I have lived and walked for the past sixty-five years.
Witness of the Spirit.
We may now throw some light upon the doctrine of "The Witness of the Spirit." The Spirit, as we are taught, is bestowed, that, "the eyes of our understanding being enlightened, we may KNOW the things which are freely given us of God." There are forms of knowledge which pertain almost exclusively to the head, and which play around the heart but to "puff up." There are, on the other hand, forms of knowledge in which there is a direct, immediate, and open beholding of the things of God. Such knowledge diffuses the peace and love of God through every department of our being, and vitalises all our activities. Such illuminations are always attended with the assurance that "we are the sons of God." At one time we know ourselves as accepted of God. At another the manifestation comes in the form of a promise; as, for example, "My presence (face) shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest," or, as in the case of Paul, "My grace is sufficient for thee: for My strength is made perfect in weakness." In other cases, "We behold with open face as in a glass the glory of the Lord, and are changed into the same image from glory to glory," or have conscious "fellowship with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ." All such manifestations imply our sonship, and are attended with the consciousness of it. In them all in common, consequently, "the Spirit itself beareth witness with (to) our spirit that we are children of God." Those greatly err who confine this "witness" to a direct and immediate testimony to the mere fact of sonship.
Choice of Life Principles.
Finding myself, as a newly-adopted servant of Christ and son of God, standing in the midst of a great diversity of opposing sects, and conflicting schools in my own denomination, the question, at a very early period of my Christian life, came distinctly before my mind, "What shall be my life-principle of judging and action?" Two widely diverse choices were presented one of which I was necessitated to select. I might choose my denomination,—my own, of course,—and my school in the same, and then accept of its system as the sum and substance of Christian truth. In that case I should be at home and at peace within my own limited circle, but stand in a hostile attitude towards all other schools and sects around me. Or, in the second place, as it is self-evident that there is, or may be, an admixture of truth and error in the systems of all evangelical schools and sects, I might, in the light of a sacred respect for "the law and the testimony" as my absolute authority in all questions of doctrine and life, carefully examine all systems which should fall under my observation, separate the true from the false in them all, and construct my own system from "the living stones" which I should thus gather. In adopting this course, I clearly perceived that I should not be fully at home anywhere, but should lead just such a life as I have led. At the same time I as distinctly saw that on no other line could I have peace of conscience and walk closely with God. With inward agony hardly less excruciating, as it seems to me, than crucifixion, I adopted this as the fixed law of my future life. And now, if I were standing where I did sixty-five years ago, and had before me all that I have endured and suffered, I would, with all my heart, and with all my soul, readopt this sacred principle. To one who judges and acts in absolute conformity with this principle, truth received has always an immortal freshness, and ever reflects upon the soul the face of "the Sun of Righteousness."
I will here give a single example in illustration, of my meaning. After I had left my church in Cincinnati, to occupy the place of President of Oberlin College, one of my new school associates in the Cincinnati Presbytery was asked the question, "What do you think of President Mahan?" "I don't like him," was the reply. "He would never act with his party." Or, as might have been said, He would never advocate any doctrine but under the conviction that it was true, or any measure but under the persuasion that it was right and wise. He would never accept or adopt anything because it was the mere watchword of a party or sect. No one ever accused me of being quarrelsome or captious. But truth and duty were the golden pavement on which I was immutably determined to walk. "I would to God" that all ministers and members of our churches were, not only almost, but altogether such as I have been in this fundamental respect.
Discerning Character, and Copying the Example of others.
I must here refer to one other life-principle which I very early apprehended and adopted, and have followed during these sixty-five years. We very frequently meet with individuals, the watchword of whose lives is the example of some leading thinker or actor. In the Scriptures we are required to be "followers," or imitators, of God, of Christ, and of apostles, and prophets, and holy men, who have gone before us or are now living. In all such requirements peculiar mental characteristics, and the mere visibilities of life, are never referred to. Reference is always had to the spirit and vital principles by which such persons are governed. "Be ye followers of God, as dear children, and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and gave Himself for us." "Let this mind (spirit) be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." "Whose faith follow." "Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience." There are several respects in which we may study the characters and lives of others, and attempt to imitate the same. We may think of the visibilities of their lives, and aim to copy them. Or we may study their doctrinal teachings, and accept them, not only as true, but as the sum and substance of all Divine truth. Or, lastly, we may study their interior spirit and principles, and aim to copy whatever is Divine in them. In either case we may regard ourselves as imitators of our adopted models.
A certain minister in the United States, for example, had become an almost worshipful admirer of Mr. Wesley, and determined to be his full imitator. He, accordingly, carefully put down how many hours Mr. Wesley spent in sleep, how many in study, how many in prayer, and how many in active duties; how many meals he took, and how much and what he ate and drank at each meal, &c. Having laid down all these as absolute rules for himself, he set himself in right good earnest to copy his model. The result was that our preacher, in less than one year, was laid aside entirely from the ministry as a hopeless dyspeptic. Suppose, on the other hand, that he had determined to think just as Mr. Wesley did, and had accordingly studied all his teachings, accepting the same as absolute truths, and the sum and sub- stance of the Gospel. In that case, our preacher would have rendered him- self as hopeless a spiritual dyspeptic as he had a physical one by an attempt to copy Mr. Wesley in another respect. Suppose, finally, that our preacher had this spirit, his faith in God, his consecration to Christ, his patient endurance of affliction and wrong, the singleness and purity of all his pur- poses and aims, and the enduements of power from on high under which that man of God lived and acted, and had made it a fixed aim to copy him in all these imitable respects. Suppose further that, with a wise discrimination, our preacher had studied Mr. Wesley's teachings and doctrines with a supreme reference to their adaptation to render that man of God what he was, and to induce similar transformations in all who should receive them as he did, and had valued and received them for the same end that Mr. Wesley did. In that case, "the righteousness" of our preacher would have "gone forth as brightness, and his salvation as a lamp that burneth."
In all our churches there are multitudes of almost hopeless spiritual dyspeptics who have rendered themselves such by causes like those above described. The individual who commits to memory his church catechism or formulary of doctrine, or stores his mind with the teachings of any man or class of men, and, without "searching the Scriptures whether these things are so," accepts their dogmas as the sum and substance of Divine truth, is worse than a spiritual dyspeptic; "he is dead while he liveth." The living healthful saint "calls no man master," and has but one standard and test of Divine truth, "the law and the testimony," and whatever he accepts as true in the creeds or teachings of men, he accepts and values for this exclusive reason, its clear accordance with the Sacred Word.
Studying men in the light of the principles under consideration, I often find in the spirit and vital principles of individuals, from whom I totally differ on many important questions of doctrine, very much to love and imitate; and in the spirit and interior principles of others, with whom I fully agree in doctrine, nothing to approve or adopt. The doctrine of the will, as set forth in the writings of President Edwards and of myself, for example, is, in all respects, in opposition the one to the other, and I stand at the antipodes of all his necessitarian teachings. Yet there is hardly an individual known in Christian history with whose spirit and life-principles I hold deeper and more constant fellowship than with his. We cannot get very near the centre of his heart without getting quite near that of Christ.
Such are some of the steps heavenward which I early found grace to take, and which have determined my subsequent Christian course thus far; and these things from "the spoils" (thus early) "won in battle have I dedicated to maintain the house of the Lord."
CHAPTER IV.
PRIMAL SOUL-CULTURE, HOW ADVANCED,
AND HOW HINDERED.
THE believer on his entrance into the kingdom of grace, whatever the period of his natural life may be, appears there as "a new creature," "a new-born babe," "a babe in Christ." The sphere of existence and activity into which he has been introduced is wholly new to him. He has been regenerated that he may grow, "grow up in Christ in all things," and thus attain to "the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." He has been introduced into this new sphere of existence and activity, not merely to grow, but to be in the world as Christ was in the world, to "do the works which He did," to live and act among men as "the salt of the earth," and "the light of the world." If he falls short of this, his life is a failure, a dishonour to himself, to Christ Who redeemed him to God, and to the Spirit Who regenerated him; a cause of weakness to the Church, and a false light to the world. "He is good for nothing." It is hardly to be supposed that the life of a genuine new-born soul, a soul born of God, and rightly educated and trained, should be anything less than a glorious success. Hence the stress which is everywhere, in the New Testament and the Old too, laid upon spiritual growth and discipline, even more being said upon this one subject than upon the mission of the Church for the conversion of the world. The reason is obvious. A believer who abides in Christ, and "is through Him," filled more and more "with all the fulness of God," cannot be in the world anything less or anything else than "a burning and a shining light," and "as a prince" he must have "power with God and with men." A church made up of such believers will be an all-conquering host against "all the powers of the enemy."
Nor is the Church or its ministry left without a clearly and distinctly revealed METHOD, in conformity with which God requires His sons and daughters to be educated and disciplined for active service in His cause and kingdom. In the four Gospels we have a distinct record of the method in accordance with which Christ educated and disciplined His converts during the three years in which they remained under His tuition, until they were endued with power for world-conquest at the Pentecost. In the Acts we have a revelation equally distinct of the method in conformity with which inspired apostles educated and trained the converts gathered into the kingdom of grace through their ministry. Two inspired Epistles, those to the Thessalonians, are addressed in fact and form to a mass of young converts but a few months after their conversion. Here lessons of infinite moment may be gathered on this vital subject. Here are principles of very ready application, through which we may clearly determine the essential characteristics of the method under consideration. Among these principles I would direct very special attention to the following.
A fixed aim of the Scriptures throughout is, that the people of God shall become "a wise and understanding people." Real knowledge in no form is undervalued. Great importance is attached to "hearing the Word, and understanding it." Salvation is "through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth." The Spirit is given, "that we might know the things which are freely given us of God." "For the soul to be without knowledge," we read, "is not good." Instruction in doctrine, however, is by no means a primary aim of Scripture. "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, yet have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, yet have not love, I am nothing." "Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well; the devils also believe, and trenible." "Knowledge puffeth up." The term doctrine, I would remark, as employed in Scripture, represents much more than it does in common thought and theological discourse. "I give you good doctrine, forsake ye not My law." Here "doctrine" and the principles of duty and right being and doing are represented as one and the same. So, throughout the Bible, the term "doctrine" includes the rules and laws of duty and of life, as fully as it does the being of God, or the Divinity and atonement of Christ. "The wisdom which is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy." "Speaking the things which concern sound doctrine" consists, according to Paul, in teaching "aged men," and "aged women," "young women," "young men," "servants," and all classes of individuals, how to live and act, in their diverse spheres of life and action; in other words, how to "be holy in all manner of conversation." To be "sound in the faith," according to "the pattern shown in the mount," is not merely to hold an orthodox creed,—though that is not to be despised,—but more especially, to "hold the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience." The object of vital concern, however, which Christ and His inspired apostles set before converts and all believers, as the one fixed and supreme aim of their existence, is personal holiness. The Sermon on the Mount was addressed to a mass of converts, who had been, during the few prior months, gathered into the kingdom of God. What is the central theme and aim of that discourse? But one form of doctrine has place anywhere in it, to wit, personal holiness in its completeness and perfection,—how to attain and retain this state,—the relations of the believer to the world when in this state, and when he has forfeited his sacred trust,—and the endless consequences awaiting him as "a hearer and doer," or as a hearer and non-doer, of "the sayings of Christ." Everything was said that could have been said, to render this one subject the fixed and changeless centre about which Christian thought and regard should continuously revolve.
Personal holiness, we must bear in mind, consists, first of all, in being "saved from our sins," and then in "standing perfect and complete in all the will of God." Every word our Saviour uttered, from the time when, "in the power of the Spirit," "He went out of the wilderness," until His sacred hands were extended in blessing over His disciples, was an exclusive means to this one end, to impress upon all believers the great fact that "they have not chosen Christ, but that He has chosen them, and ordained them, that they should go and bring forth fruit, and that their fruit should remain;" and to teach them how to bring forth the fruit required of them. And when "He was by the right hand of God exalted, and had received the promise of the Father," and the disciples were all, consequently, filled with the Holy Ghost, all was done that "they might be a habitation of God through the Spirit," and that "God might make all grace abound toward them, so that they, always having all sufficiency for all things, might abound unto every good work." How impressively is the supreme value which Christ places, and would have us place, upon personal holiness, set before us in such expressions as the following! "For whosoever shall do the will of My Father Which is in heaven, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother." "Yea, rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it." "I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them as Thou hast loved Me." Christ never uttered a sentence, or announced a doctrine, but as a means to this one end.
Upon exactly the same line ran the entire instructions of inspired apostles, and all other of the sacred writers. Holiness in heart and life was the only lesson which they were taught. How their writings everywhere abound in such reminders and admonitions as these! "As He Who hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation." "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." "Your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost." "Therefore glorify God in your bodies, and in your spirits, which are His." "Ye are not your own, ye are bought with a price, even the precious blood of Christ." "Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." "These things write I unto you, that ye sin not." "Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ; to Whom be glory for ever and ever, Amen."
The writings of these holy men of God abound in "doctrine;" but it is the doctrine of holy living. Every revelation of each Person of the Sacred Trinity is set before us as a motive to a godly life. The Spirit "takes of the things of Christ, and shows them unto us," that we, "beholding with open face as in a glass the glory of the Lord, may be changed into the same image from glory to glory." "He strengtheneth with might in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith;" and we thereby "become rooted and grounded in love." Every truth presented in the Bible is for moral purification, to confirm faith, to render love perfect and obedience absolute.
The first and supreme lesson, then, to be taught the convert, the chief thought with which his mind should be occupied, is the great central fact and truth that he is "called to be a saint;" to be in the "world as Christ was in the world;" to "shine as a light in the world;" to "win souls;" to "perfect the saints;" to "be fruitful in every good work;" and that when he comes short of being and doing all this, he becomes "reprobate silver," the most blighting curse with which the Church and the world can be smitten. He then needs to be instructed most fully in regard to the conditions of fruitfulness in the kingdom of grace; his completeness in Christ for all the exigencies of his sacred calling, and the infinite fulness that exists in Him to render every believer thus complete; the enduements of power which he is privileged to receive for the full accomplishment of his life mission and work; and the endless consequences to himself and others which are pending upon his fidelity or want of fidelity to his sacred calling.
These are the eternal verities in the midst of which, and under the influence of which, Christ and His inspired apostles educated young and old believers, and in the midst of which, and under the influence of which, all converts, in all ages, should be educated. Everywhere they should be under the influence of a united church sentiment, that no other form of life is expected of them and all should be enforced by the admonitions and examples of ministers and old disciples. Everywhere the old disciples should be to young converts what the old veterans were to the new recruits in the army of Wellington on the evening prior to the battle of Waterloo. A considerable portion of that army were of recent enlistment, and had never been under fire up to that time. As soon as it became known, on the evening referred to, that a great battle was to be fought on the next day, these old veterans set about preparing their new associates for the exigencies of the coming conflict, telling them of the overshadowing powers of their great commander; that he had never lost a battle; that no exigency could occur in the coming conflict for which he would not be fully prepared; that the soldiery had only to obey the word of command and do their duty; and the greatest victory ever won by an English army would with infallible certainty be gained on the morrow. It is a matter of question whether England is not as much indebted to the exhortations of those old veterans as to the wisdom of her grand Duke for the victory gained on that day. When old disciples shall sustain similar relations to new recruits in the army of the Lord, there will not be a coward, or a weakling, or a backslider in that army, not one who will not "endure hardness as a good soldier of Christ."
Misdirected Primal Christian Education.
To a very great extent young converts, in our churches, are educated after the manner of the waif, rather than that of a son or daughter in the sanctified family of God, of a pupil in the school of Christ, or of a newly enlisted "soldier in the army of the Lord." After his conversion, and a public profession of his faith in the church of his choice, his subsequent character and life are left very much to the companionship and influences which may by chance befall him. For the proper cure of his soul none seem to feel much, if any, responsibility. Who feels responsibility for his restoration, "when overtaken in a fault," to "strengthen him when weak," to "comfort him when feeble-minded," or to impart to him needful instruction in "the way of the Lord?"
In determining the question, with what sect he shall identify himself, what is the supreme issue in the light of which he is expected and required by the public sentiment around him to decide that momentous question? Turning in one direction, he finds this issue presented as of supreme importance,—the mere quantity of water to be applied to his body at his baptism; or the point whether the ordinance is to be applied to the children of believers, or exclusively to adults after conversion. Turning in another direction, the consideration presented as of supreme and absolute authority in determining his inquiries is this,—a ministry affirmed to be in the apostolic succession, and a truly apostolic church. The minister may undeniably be a "blind guide," and his membership as void of true godliness as were the dry bones in Ezekiel's vision of real life. Yet, to reap the supposed benefits arising from apostolic succession, the young convert must place himself under a "blind guide," and make his abode in that "valley of dry bones," and thus render a life of kindred deadness a moral certainty. Turning in another direction, this question is presented as settling the selection, namely, "Which church is organised and officered after the real New Testament model? and which has the soundest creed?" The question, "Where can I find the most sanctifying soul-care, and where can I best exert my powers in the supreme concern of soul-saving and soul-edification?" is not permitted to have any place in the convert's mind in determining this momentous life-question. Suppose, now, that in addition to all this, the great concern manifested by minister and church, in his examination for membership, is not the state of his heart, but his views of doctrine; in some instances, the only questions put to the candidate being those prescribed in the Catechism, and the only answers expected being a mere recitation of those there printed. In making such considerations supreme in deciding such life-issues, the first step is taken in rendering that supreme in the convert's regard, which, with Christ, is of the least and last concern. Being thus early so misdirected, the principle, "Whether ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God," is not very likely to regain its proper place in his mind.
Consider, in the next place, the public sentiment within the church of his choice, the sentiment with which the convert commonly finds himself surrounded in regard to the life which he has in prospect; the sentiment, that the short period after conversion, while primal joy and the "first love" shall continue in their freshness, is the brightest, the purest, and the best period of the Christian life, death-triumph excepted. Between these two periods, as commonly represented, lies a wandering pilgrimage through a dreary desert; a pilgrimage in which there will be a continuous cry,
"Where is the blessedness I knew
When first I saw the Lord?"
Years passed in my Christian experience before I was presented with any other aspect of the religious life but this one. The convert who replied to the congratulations which he had received in respect to his great joy in God, at the time when he publicly united himself with the people of God, "This won't last, I expect to backslide," only echoed the religious sentiment in which he had lived, and moved, and had his being from childhood up. To me, the seventh of Romans was presented as a Divine portraiture of religious life and experience in the highest and best form possible in this life. The Christian and the sinner were represented as both in common "carnal, sold under sin," and both alike in a helpless "captivity to the law of sin and death." The difference between them consisted in this. The sinner chooses and loves his bondage, while the believer groans under his, and vainly struggles to be free from it. The sinner chooses the evil, and refuses the good; the Christian chooses the good, and wills not to do the evil, while "the good he would he does not, but the evil he would not that he does;" finding it the fixed law of all his activity, that when "he would do good, evil is present with him," the law in the members "warring against the law of his mind, and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin in his members." One of the favourite hymns then sung contained an attempted versification of this form of Gospel experience, each successive verse beginning with the words:
"I would, but can't repent;"
"I would, but can't believe;"
"I would, but cannot love;"
"I would, but can't obey."
Thus the responsibility for sin was denied of the will, and attributed wholly to a want of power to avoid it.
Progress in the Christian life was in those days, and is too commonly now, represented as ever attended with greater and greater discoveries of, and insight into, the depths of inward depravity. The idea was, not that sin is revealed in the consciousness, in order that the evil and bitter thing may be taken away, but to increase what was called "humbleness of mind." Prayer and effort to be pure, and to have grace to serve God acceptably, would result but in new and more appalling discoveries of indwelling sin, and the "plague of our own hearts." I recollect the first and last stanzas of a favourite hymn, in which this idea was set forth. The convert was made to say:
In- faith, and love, and every grace;
Might more of His salvation know,
And seek more earnestly His face."
The convert, the hymn goes on to say, "thought that in some favoured hour" God would reveal Himself, show His glory, change the petitioner into the Divine "image from glory to glory," and render "his peace as a river, and his righteousness as the waves of the sea." Instead of this, the Lord made the trustful suppliant more and more sensible of the hidden wickedness of his own heart. The last stanza runs thus:
" 'Lord, how is this?' I trembling cried:
'Wilt Thou pursue a worm to death?'
'I answer prayer for grace and faith.'"
The idea of Christ manifested, not merely to make known, but to "take away our sins," had no place then, as it has little place now, in Christian thought. The great lesson to be learned in the school of Christ, and under the illumination of the Spirit of God, was then, and is now too commonly, understood to be, not "the unsearchable riches of Christ," "the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you the hope of glory," but the one endlessly growing lesson of personal sinfulness, sinfulness more and more distinctly and appallingly revealed, but never taken away. The idea of "serving God with a pure conscience and faith unfeigned," of being "more than conquerors through Him that hath loved us," of "fellowship with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ," and of "asking and receiving until our joy is full," was not so much as named among believers then, as it is not among a majority of them even now.
The Christian life and the world life were then, as they are quite commonly now, symbolised by two paths leading in opposite directions—the latter covered with flowers, and the former with thorns; the one called "the flowery way," and the other "the thorn-road;" the traveller over the former having present ease and pleasure, but "dying in his sins," while the weary pilgrim over the latter would be ever pained and bleeding with thorn-wounds, but would find rest at last. The idea that "the King's highway" leads through the seventh of Romans wholly veiled from thought God's own description of "the Way of Holiness." "And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein. No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon; it shall not be found there: and the redeemed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." Not one of these travellers shall ever bleed or be pained with "thorn-wounds," or cry out, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" There is not a thorn on that highway, nor a traveller there who groans under a body of death. The common idea is an unpardonable slander upon "the glorious Gospel of the blessed God."
The aspect of the world in which God has, located us, and of all things in it, was then as now depicted from the book of Ecclesiastes, and was thus expressed in one of the popular hymns:
" How vain are all things here below!
How false, and yet how fair!
Each pleasure has its poison too,
And every sweet a snare."
Such was the aspect with which the convert was taught to regard the works and providences of God around him, and all the good things which a kind Father might shower upon him. Yet he was taught to endeavour to be ever thankful for the "vain things," ensnaring "sweets," and vexatious vanities of this wilderness life. The absurdity of such teachings is made quite manifest by a fact which came to our knowledge several years since. Of all places on earth, the Genesee Valley, in the State of New York, is one of the most productive in all that administers to the physical comforts of life. Landholders there "are princes." When I was on a visit to an uncle residing there, a cousin, who owned a magnificent farm in the valley, made this statement to me. The Baptist church of which he was a member, and which was located in the village near by, had occasion to seek a pastor. They accordingly sent a request to the Theological Faculty of the Rochester University, a Baptist institution, that they would send one of their promising students to preach as a candidate for the vacant office. As the young man rose in the pulpit, his dress made it quite manifest that upon some of the "vain things here below" he placed, to say the least, a reasonable value. With his mind, however, filled with the sentiment of that misapplied but oft-repeated text, "Vanity of vanities, vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, all is vanity," he introduced the services with the hymn which begins thus:
Lord, what a wretched land is this,
The absurdity was too obvious for the gravity even of an audience trained in the idea that the religious life is mainly a continuous groan. The people looked at each other and could hardly restrain laughter. "He has forgotten that he is in the Genesee Valley," whispered a gentleman that sat near my cousin. The young candidate "departed without being desired." Had I the ear of the Faculty of that seminary, and of that of every other similar institution, I would entreat them not to present to their pupils, as the Christian idea of life and providence, the aspect of these same Divine verities as viewed from the backsliding standpoint, the only aspect presented in Ecclesiastes. "Every creature (gift) of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving."
As viewed by the consecrated traveller on "the Way of Holiness," all things are full of God, and manifest His parental love and care. As he travels on, "the desert buds and blossoms as the rose," "the mountains and the hills break forth before him into singing, and all the trees of the field clap their hands." It is sin in the heart, and that only, sin which should be taken away, which blights our joys, "curses our blessings," and renders the earth a land of darkness, and the shadow of death.
"If sin be in the heart,
The fairest sky is foul, and sad the summer weather,
The eye no longer sees the lambs at play together,
The dull ear cannot hear the birds that sing so sweetly,
And all the joy of God's good earth is gone completely,
If sin be in the heart.
"If peace be in the heart.
The wildest winter storm is full of solemn beauty,
The midnight lightning-flash but shows the path of duty,
Each living creature tells some new and joyous story,
The very trees and stones all catch a ray of glory,
If peace be in the heart."
Having his new birth and education in the midst of such religious ideas and sentiments as these, what can be expected of the convert but a consumptive life, a dwarfed and abnormal growth, and a sickly feebleness which fits him for the hospital rather than for field-service? And such are the masses in our churches, and here are visible and efficient causes which adequately account for such a state of things. When will Zion "arise, shake herself from the dust, and put on her beautiful garments?"
Iron Bands of Theological Dogma.
Let us now contemplate the iron bands of theological dogma, bands in which the convert so often finds himself fast bound, bands which render the normal growth of the new-born soul as impossible, as does the iron shoe that of the foot of the female infant among the Chinese. Take two or three of these dogmas as examples: "No man is able, either of himself or by any grace received in this life, perfectly to keep the commandments of God; but daily doth break them in thought, word, and deed." Thus the convert is started on his course with a professed revelation from God, that he has no power, either of himself, or from any grace vouchsafed in this life, to render the obedience required of him, on the one hand, and that, as a matter of fact, he will, on the other, every day of his life break these requirements "in thought, word, and deed." As a matter of course, he must "make God a liar," that is, discredit His revealed word, or utterly dismiss from mind and thought all expectation and rational intention to render that obedience. To aim at such obedience, in the case of one who holds such sentiments, is but to attempt and aim at a revealed and acknowledged impossibility, one of the most irrational and absurd purposes conceivable.
But what, according to these dogmas, is the state of the believer when he does sin? Listen to the answer "True believers, by reason of the unchangeable love of God and His decree and covenant to give them perseverance, their inseparable union with Christ, His continual intercession for them, and the Spirit and seed of God abiding in them, can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace." Again, "They whom God hath accepted in the Beloved, effectually called and sanctified by His Spirit, can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace." Thus, while the convert is assured as a revealed fact from God that he will sin, and sin "daily in thought, word, and deed," he is also furnished with an alleged Divine assurance that by no possibility, can he so sin, whatever forms of evil he may perpetrate, as to forfeit his gracious standing with God, or endanger his immortal interests. All the evil that sin in any form can do to believers is to cause them "to fall under God's fatherly displeasure," to " shut out from them the light of His countenance," and "subject them to parental chastisement," "until they humble themselves" and "renew their faith and repentance." But what sins are we taught, as a revealed truth of God, that believers may commit? "Nevertheless they may, through the temptations of Satan and the world, the prevalence of corruption remaining in them, and the neglect of the means of preservation, fall into grievous sins, and for a time continue therein: whereby they incur God's displeasure, and grieve His Holy Spirit; come to be deprived of some of their graces and comforts, have their hearts hardened and their consciences wounded, hurt and scandalise others, and bring temporal judgments upon themselves."
Such were the dogmas which, as absolute revelations from God, were distinctly put before our mind from childhood up, under the deadening influence of which we commenced our Christian course, and to which an absolute assent was required when we publicly united with the people of God.
This I affirm in the fear of God and as my absolute belief, that if it had been left wholly to the old serpent to frame dogmas and mould a religious sentiment for the education of the Lord's sons and daughters, he would not have desired or asked that one "jot or tittle" should be taken from, or added to, those under consideration. What could God do more to insure in every new-born soul a backsliding life, than to require of it an absolute belief that it will sin, sin "daily in thought, word, and deed," sin nobody knows in what form and to what extent, and that no form or degree of sin, which it can by any possibility commit, will imperil its immortal interests? If the purpose of the framers of such dogmas, and of the generators of such a religious sentiment, was to render the churches, in the language of a distinguished Presbyterian minister in the United States, "a hospital for invalids," and "a refuge for scoundrels," how could they frame a system better adapted to such a purpose than that which we have before us? It will not surprise the reader when I tell him that during the eighteen years in which I stumbled on amid the fog and miasma generated by those dogmas, I never-met a single minister or professed Christian who held such a faith who was leading a joyful and triumphant Christian life, who was not a confessed stranger to the form of experience represented by such terms as, "Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water," "joy unspeakable, and full of glory," "I will dwell in them, and walk in them," and who was not a captive groaning under the law of sin and death.
Take two eminent illustrative examples, one from this, and the second from the other, side of the Atlantic. A distinguished American theologian, in a discourse on "The Consolations of Religion," thus writes: "And yet how stinted and uncertain the measure of happiness which even the best of Christians is able to derive from this Divine fountain! His earthly cares, his daily employments, his bodily wants and infirmities, his foolish imaginations, his anxious thoughts, his variable humours, his doubts and fears, and his unavoidable interruptions, are constantly spreading a mist around him, or gathering dark and impervious clouds over his head, which not only hide the bright shining of the Sun of Righteousness, but are well filled with lightnings, overshadowing his soul with darkness and dread. All sources of happiness, save one, are either dried or poisoned. And of that the best of Christians rather desires to taste, than actually and freely drinks." Let us now hearken to a kindred groan from a celebrated teacher of the same school on this side of the Atlantic, when speaking from the text, "Fear not, I am with thee." "Ah! my brethren and sisters, if you have come to this, and can always keep there (a state of settled peace in God), I only wish I could; I can believe in God, and do believe in Him—glory be to His name!—and have seen His arm uplifted and His faithfulness and truth displayed as few have seen; but yet that awful unbelief, that dark miasma which is the death of comfort, this worse than cholera, this pest, this infidelity, for which no excuse can be made, this most damnable of sins, this which has no foundation, for which I will not whisper even a thought of apology, this still creeps over us and unmans us. How it throws us into the mire! How it breaks our bones, and like a mighty Juggernaut car rolls over our very nature to crush it to nothing! O God, save us from it."
Thus the teachers of these dogmas are compelled to eat before the world the apples of that tree of Sodom, the tree which they have so zealously watered. Such ever have been, such are now, and ever will be, the best experiences which can arise under these death-inducing dogmas; dogmas which veil from the faith of the believer, and render indefinite and uninfluential to the mind, Christ's revealed power to save—"save to the uttermost,"—together with all the provisions and promises of grace, which specify nothing less, and nothing else, than sanctification full and complete; dogmas which impart resistless power to the love of sin in the members, by generating an absolute assurance of being overcome by it, and cut the sinews of all holy aims, purposes, and efforts, by perpetually reminding the subject that "the good he would, he will not do; but the evil he would not, that he will do."
CHAPTER V.
GROWTH DESPITE ADVERSE INFLUENCES.
IT would seem, at first thought, that with a convert ignorant as I was of the way of holiness, and all the conditions of sanctification, and born, educated, and born again, under such teachings and forms of doctrine as we have detailed in the preceding chapters, there could be no real advance in the Divine life, but a continuous backsliding. That non-growth and backsliding are the natural results of such teachings and beliefs, and their inevitable results, whenever, as is common with those who hold them, they become the leading themes of religious thought and discourse, is undeniable. Yet, as a matter of fact, it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to determine which was the most holy person, Jonathan Edwards or John Wesley, George Whitefield or Charles Wesley, William Tennant or John Fletcher, David Brainerd or William Bramwell, Mrs. Edwards or Mrs. Fletcher, Miss Susanna Anthony or Mrs. Hester Ann Rogers, Mrs. Sarah Osborne or Mrs. Phoebe Palmer. In comparing the memoirs of these two classes, we must admit that the sky of the first class was more frequently darkened than that of the second; that the faith of the former carried heavier weights than that of the latter and that in the experience of the former there was, at times, more of servitude and less of liberty than in that of the latter, more of groaning bondage and less of all-conquering grace. Yet both classes often and equally "beheld with open face the glory of the Lord," and with equal openness of vision stood face to face with the Sun of Righteousness in His meridian glory. The reason is obvious. Our spiritual state does not depend wholly upon mere doctrinal belief, but chiefly upon those aspects of truth which mainly occupy our thoughts and regard. The two classes of individuals under consideration differed widely, in very important respects, in their theory of Christian doctrine. Yet the same truths, and the same aspects of the same truths, were to all in common the objects of supreme thought and regard, and were the determining causes of their spiritual states and character. In all in common there was an all-impressive apprehension of the infinite evil and criminality of sin, and a supreme regard for personal holiness. Above all, all these holy men and women had conscious "fellowship with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ," as, through the Spirit, a personally manifested presence to their minds and hearts. God was, to all in common, "their everlasting light, and their God their glory." "One day," says President Edwards, "when walking for contemplation and prayer, I had a view, that to me was extraordinary, of the glory of the Son of God, as Mediator between God and man, and His wonderful, great, full, pure, and sweet grace and love, and meek and gentle condescension. His grace that appeared so calm and sweet, appeared also great above the heavens; the person of Christ appeared ineffably excellent, with an excellency great enough to swallow up all thought and conception. I had an ardency of soul to be, what I know not otherwise how to express, emptied and annihilated, to lie in the dust, and to be filled with Christ alone, to love Him with a holy and pure love, to trust in Him, and to live upon Him, and to be perfectly sanctified and made pure with a Divine and heavenly purity."
Such manifestations were common in the experience of Mrs. Edwards and the Tennants, and others, as common as in those of Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher. One of the holiest men Scotland ever knew was Robert Annan, who died at Dundee the last day of July, 1867, losing his own life by drowning, in a successful effort to save from the same fate a lad who had fallen into the water. Let us contemplate the following fact in his experience just before his death. "On Wednesday, 24th July, 1867," says his biographer, "just seven days before Robert Annan went home, he was standing on a raft, and as he floated about he was suddenly visited with an extraordinary manifestation of God to his soul. He had long ere this attained to close, habitual, and almost unbroken fellowship with his great Redeemer; but now he was brought so near that for the time he knew not that he was in the body. The heavens seemed to open to his view. The glory of the Lord filled his soul with a radiance well-nigh insupportable. His cup was full. So near did Jesus come that he felt as if he were talking to Him face to face. So glorious did the Lord appear in His majesty, that Robert bowed his head with awe; and yet so ineffable was the love and condescension of that peerless One, that His disciple was filled with a strange overpowering joy. How long this lasted he could hardly tell, but the shaking of the raft upon the water reminded him that he was still outside of heaven. Robert spoke of this to his Christian friends, and said, 'Jesus came to me on the water, and I thought I was home.' He looked upon this blessed experience as his Master's call to go home. 'Do not wonder,' he said, to some of his brethren, 'if you hear some strange thing about me one of these days.'" "Can you get an occasional glimpse of Christ now you are dying?" was a question put to an aged Scotch saint when he was on his death-bed. "I'll have none of your glimpses now I am dying, since I have had an open look at the face of Christ these forty years gone," was the reply of the already transfigured saint. Believers who thus know God, believers upon whom "the Sun of Righteousness has thus risen with healing in His wings," and who thus "behold with open face the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory," whatever their creed may be. All such bear the same image, because all in common are drawn beyond the influence of creeds into that Divine circle, where all in common move in blissful fixedness about one and the same changeless centre, "Jesus Christ and Him crucified." It is when mere doctrine constitutes the leading theme of religious thought and discourse, that the real tendency of diverse forms of belief becomes manifest. It is not by the rectification of its creed, but by an open vision of the glory of God and of the Lamb, that the soul becomes perfectly sanctified, if it has not been before, when it enters into and walks in the everlasting light of heaven. It is not through a creed, but by the "Spirit making manifest the thoughts and intents of the heart," that "the world is convinced of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment."
It was not because of their creeds that Edwards and Tennant, and Wesley and Fletcher, became the men of God that they were, but because they all in common knew God and walked with Him as a personally manifested Presence, and consequently as "their everlasting Light." Whosoever thus walks in the light of God will, in his entire character and life, "wear the image of the heavenly," and will "purify himself as God is pure."
There is scarcely any subject which all believers need more clearly to understand than the distinction between holding a truth of God as a mere doctrine, and having an inward experience of the power of that truth as a principle of life. We come, for example, upon the following passage of the Sacred Word: "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee because he trusteth in Thee." "Trust ye in the Lord for ever: for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength." Here is distinctly unveiled to our apprehension the Divine Infinity. Suppose now that one enters upon a careful study of the Divine perfections until every attribute of the Divine Nature becomes to him an object of clear and distinct apprehension, and he is able to elucidate it to the edification of others. All is studied, however, as a mere system of doctrine, just as the same individual may have studied a system of geometry; the truth found in one system exercising no more moral and spiritual power over his heart and life than is exercised by the other. The individual is in the presence of truths, in the apprehension of which "angels adore and burn," and "devils tremble." This individual does neither. His apprehensions simply induce in him the pride of knowledge. All is to him "a ministration of death." But suppose we look again into this same passage. Here are unfolded God's Infinity and Almightiness, not merely as a doctrine, but as an omnipresent and all-persuasive motive for truth or faith. We staying ourselves on God and trusting in Him, all the resources of His infinity become available to us, and are consecrated for us, for our perfect peace, eternal safety, and the supply of all our need. We accordingly "trust in the Lord for ever," and in hopeful trust "our minds are stayed on Him." In studying the Divine attributes as mere doctrines, we are in the sphere of "the letter which killeth." In making every one of these perfections an all-constraining motive for trust, love, godly fear, and obedience, we are in the sphere of the Spirit which "giveth life."
We come into the presence of another passage: "Wherefore He is able to save unto the uttermost them that come unto God by Him." In contemplating the "all power" of which Christ is possessed, we enter upon a careful study of His perfections, until, attaining to clear apprehensions of His Divinity, incarnation, atonement, intercessory functions, &c., we are able to prove and elucidate them all. All, however, is studied and contemplated as a matter of doctrine. We are again in the sphere of "the letter which killeth," and in relations of the greatest possible peril to our immortal interests. Suppose, on the other hand, that we study the perfections, offices, and functions of Christ, as a means and condition of knowing Him, and being known by Him, "even as the Father knows Him, and He knows the Father," for the purpose of availing ourselves, in all its fulness, of the "all power" that abides in Him to "save us unto the uttermost," and of becoming and doing all that is possible through faith in His name. We are now again in the sphere of "the Spirit," where "we have life, and have it more abundantly." Such is the distinction everywhere between "the letter" and "the Spirit," between knowing God's truth as a mere doctrine and as a source of life.
A distinction equally wide and palpable obtains between "the ministration of the letter" and "the ministration of the Spirit." The preaching of not a few professed heralds of the Cross never rises higher than a simple elucidation of doctrine as such. Nor does the thought of the hearer ever rise higher than the inquiry, whether the doctrine of the discourse has been ably or feebly, clearly or obscurely, fully or imperfectly, elucidated. Nothing heard is ever thought of as a motive to a godly life. The real motive and aim of such preachers are just as commendable, and no more so, than were those of Demetrius and his co-workers in making silver shrines for Diana. This is "the ministration of the letter," and is to both speaker and hearer "a ministration of death."
In listening to other preachers, the motive and aim of the speaker become manifest in all he says and does, namely, to save souls from death, and to promote the perfection of the saints of God. No truth or form of doctrine is presented or elucidated except with this one high and holy purpose. Here is "the ministration of the Spirit," a ministration that saves both the speaker and them that hear him.
In what has been said above, there has been no intention to depreciate doctrine, or to decry the importance of discriminating between truth and error. Take away the doctrine of the being and perfections of God, and there is no Infinite and Eternal Mind for us to trust in, fear, love, and obey, or to have fellowship with. Take away the doctrine of the Divinity, incarnation, atonement, and intercession of Christ, and we have no Saviour to believe or trust in. To study doctrine as such is one thing: to have "fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ," Whose being and perfections true doctrine expresses and represents, is quite another. In the former state, I repeat, we are in the sphere of "the ministration of death," of "the letter which killeth." In the latter we are in the sphere of "the ministration of life," of "the Spirit Who giveth life." A false creed is a death fog which veils from the face of the soul the face of "the Sun of Righteousness;" a faslse beacon light, which leads the voyager across the track of time on to the quicksands and rocks of "the second death." A creed pure and true places the soul at the base of the Delectable Mountains. If it remains there, it will die under "the ministration of death." If by faith it ascends the mount, until it stands upon the bright pinnacle, it will, even while abiding in the flesh, be transfigured and appear in glory there.
These Statements and Principles elucidated through the Facts of my early Christian Life.
Any candid and reflecting mind, in contemplating the essential doctrines and prevailing religious sentiments, under the influence of which I was born, educated from childhood up, born again, and received my primal religious culture, would conceive that my religious experience could rise no higher than, nor be diverse from, that depicted in Rom. vii. 15—24. "Carnal, sold under sin,"—"not doing what we would, and doing what we would not,"—"captivity under the law of sin in the members,"—and "groaning bondage under the weight of the body of this death," do in fact characterise, and must inevitably characterise, the experience and life of every believer whose religious thought and discourse are mainly determined by such doctrines and sentiments as those under consideration. Yet, while holding theoretically such doctrines, and encircled with such sentiments, in their baldest forms, the first four or five years of my Christian life were characterised by deep spirituality, and almost uninterrupted growth in grace. In but a single place did I spend six months, during all these years, without the occurrence of a revival of religion, of greater or less power, a revival visibly occasioned by my influence. The reason was that the main current of thought and discourse with me was determined, not by these doctrines, but by manifestations of God and His truth outside of these doctrines, and, though I knew it not at the time, utterly incompatible with them.
The reader will call to mind the manner in which I was brought to know myself as I was, my life as it had been, and my infinite criminality and hell-desert before God, namely, by a direct and immediate manifestation of God to my mind, a manifestation in which I had a direct, immediate, and absolute intuition of Him—as having from eternity "loved me with an everlasting love," as ever having been willing and desirous to save me, had I sought unto Him, as being then willing, if I would turn my face, in penitence and confession, towards the face of my God. In that manifestation I had an intuition equally absolute of the fact that I might long before have sought my Maker and Redeemer as I was required to do, and that consequently my life might have been, in all respects, the opposite of what it had been. In the light of these intuitions I had an apprehension equally absolute of my desert of eternal doom, and was led to "abhor myself, and repent as in dust and ashes." These apprehensions, directly and immediately imparted through the illumination of the Spirit of God, never left me during the years referred to. About these truths my thoughts continuously revolved, and with them my heart had direct and immediate converse. From them, consequently, and not from my creed, my spiritual character and life took form. After leaving that forest a consciously dedicated servant of Christ, and under an enduement of power the nature of which I understood not, these thoughts had supreme place in my mind: a consciousness of myself as the direct object of the infinite and eternal love of God; of the infinitude of Divine grace, not only in pardoning my sin, but in accepting me as a servant in a cause so high and sacred as the service of Christ; and the criminality and odiousness of a life utterly alienated from such infinite excellence. From time to time there was imparted to my mind a direct and impressive apprehension of the life which I had led. I would stop and contemplate with unspeakable horror the spectacle. About a year after my conversion, for example, while sitting in a family circle one evening, in the place where I was teaching school, such a view opened upon my mind. "I am horrified and affrighted," I exclaimed to a young man sitting by me, "in view of my impenitent life." Such a view rendered more and more impressive the consciousness of the infinitude of the grace and love of God, in blotting out such criminality, in permitting such a being to be "called a son of God," in taking him into service in such a cause, and in permitting him to sit with the sanctified family in "heavenly places in Christ Jesus."
A very common impression obtains among believers that a deep sense of present sin is requisite to perpetuate in the heart humility, dependence upon the grace and Spirit of Christ, and growth in Christian virtue. Such was not the experience of Paul. His Christian life ran upon the line of a "pure conscience and faith unfeigned," and of "a conscience void of offence, both toward God and toward men." Yet with what intensity of feeling does he give utterance to such sentiments as these "To me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ;" "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief;" "I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle." The reason was, not at all the consciousness of present sin, but the remembrance of the fact that "he had persecuted the Church of God;" that his soul had been stained even with the blood of the martyr Stephen and, above all, that he had "called Jesus accursed," and had entertained the supreme desire to be eternally separated (accursed) from Christ. "The time past of Paul's life sufficed him, in the absence of the consciousness of present sin, "to have wrought the will of the Gentiles." So thought Peter. So have I found it in my own experience. The Spirit has only to open my eyes to "look unto the rock from whence I have been hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence I have been digged," to perpetuate and render increasingly impressive in my mind the consciousness that the least favour received at the hand of my God and the least place in the kingdom of Christ is "infinite grace to vileness given." The most blighting heresy that the father of lies ever introduced into a Christian creed, is the absurd dogma that in order to induce and perpetuate in God's children humbleness of mind, He must leave in the depth of their hearts an abyss of moral corruption and death, a mass of "foolish and hurtful lusts" to "war in their members." What will become of us in heaven, when we shall for ever lose the consciousness of present sin? Will not humbleness of mind disappear, and spiritual pride attain to enormous dimensions there?
The apprehensions which I had of my own impenitent life, of its infinite criminality, and of the perils which perpetually encircled me, became a mirror in which I continuously saw the condition and prospects of sinners around me, and became an all-constraining motive for prayer and efforts to save their souls from death. Two ideas were made prominent in all my addresses to the impenitent: the infinite privilege now vouchsafed to them of becoming Christians, and living and acting as servants of such a Being as Christ, and the fearful probability that, treating Him and His Gospel as they were doing, they would lose their souls.
At the commencement of a revival, when a deep seriousness was overspreading the community, I was seated one afternoon in a circle in the pastor's parlour; himself and his family, a minister from abroad, and several church members being present. To me it seemed that the conversation was less serious and less spiritual than the circumstances demanded. As I sat in deep meditation, I uttered an involuntary groan. "What was the cause of that groan?" asked the visiting minister; "and why is it that you sigh, as you so frequently do?" I had been previously told that "every such sigh let out a drop of my heart's blood." To the inquiry of the minister I replied, that I was thinking of the infinite love and grace of Christ; of the infinite interest which sinners around us have in that grace; and of the manner in which they will treat that grace when it may be presented to them, together with the infinite peril which attends such lives as they were living. "I don't wonder," replied the minister, "that such reflections induce the sighs and groans which we hear from you." An awe came over that circle, and subsequent conversation took a more subdued and serious tone than I had noticed before. Without such apprehensions, no one, as it appears to me, is, or can be, prepared at all to present Christ or His Gospel to lost men.
The view which I had of the infinitude of Divine love and grace to me, and of what my life in sin had been, induced in me a perpetual "hunger and thirst after righteousness," an insatiable desire to be free from sin in all its forms; excited instant alarm at any inward promptings of a worldward or sinward character; kept me constantly near to a throne of grace, and rendered the word of life a theme of most devout study. The natural result was growth, growth in spirituality, inward joy, and power of thought and utterance in the religious life. Commencing my religious life as a lisping infant in Divine things, I had been a Christian but a little more than four years, when I was solicited to leave my studies and become the pastor of a church. This growth was not, as I have said, through my creed, but despite its morally deadening power. Nothing whatever in the system of doctrine, in which I had been educated from childhood up, excited in me a thought, emotion, desire, or impulse, in a heavenward direction. All advance came from aspects of truth intuitively apprehended, aspects of truth outside of my creed, and wholly incompatible with it, I at the time having no suspicion of their incompatibility. During these five or six years, I held in theory the system of doctrine in which I had been educated, and was a zealous advocate of it. Throughout this period I did in fact grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, because the prevailing thought and all-controlling current of my soul revolved around a centre outside of that system, foreign to and incompatible with it. We have seen how, while the mind revolved about this centre, there was growth, life, peace, and "joy unspeakable and full of glory." We shall see, in the chapters next following, how, as the mind was drawn from this centre and revolved about its creed, this primal light faded out, and a darkness succeeded which was "felt."
CHAPTER VI.
PROGRESS IN DOCTRINE: CHOICE OF SYSTEMS.
AS I have stated in former chapters, the system of doctrine in which I was educated took three distinct and antagonistic forms: the old school or limited atonement and natural inability theory, the Hopkinsian or general atonement and natural ability theory, and the Divine efficiency theory, the theory of Dr. Emmons. In the school in which I was educated, each of these theories had its zealous advocates, and between them I was early necessitated to make my election, it being then assumed as undeniable that one of these systems was true, and contained the truth of God, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. That the reader may clearly understand the progress which my mind first made in Christian doctrine, it may be necessary to restate in this connection the essential characteristics of the diverse theories under consideration.
The common principle, which lies at the basis of all these systems, is the doctrine of Divine Decrees, together with that of Eternal and Unconditional Election and Reprobation. These doctrines are thus expressed in the Confession of Faith and Catechism. "God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass." "By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated to everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death." "These angels and men, thus predestinated and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number is so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished." These are the doctrines common to all these systems and lying at their basis; doctrines which absolutely affirm and imply, that no event not eternally decreed and foreordained ever could or ever can by any possibility occur, and no event thus decreed and foreordained could or can fail to occur, or fail to occur at the specific time and in the specific form thus foreordained and predetermined, and that no man or angel not eternally elected could or can, by any possibility, be saved, and none eternally elected could or can fail of eternal life. Under this one common principle the three systems under consideration took form.
The Old School System.
According to the absolute teachings of this system, all mankind are held as deserving, and subject to, "God's wrath and curse, both in this world and that which is to come," and that for three reasons: for the one sin of Adam, an eternally decreed and immutably predetermined event; for a nature derived from Adam, a nature which, while unchanged by sovereign grace, renders it utterly and naturally impossible for them to obey the will of God, or not to commit the sins which they do commit; and for actual transgressions whose nonoccurrence was rendered absolutely impossible by the eternal and unchangeable decree of God, and the nature referred to. For the salvation of the elect, and for them only, full provisions exist in Christ, and the time and means of their conversion are predetermined, as also their preservation unto eternal life, so that not one of them can, by any possibility, be lost; while the non-elect are held subject to eternal doom for the reasons stated, and no provisions in Christ exist for their redemption. "Our first parents sinned in eating the forbidden fruit. This their sin God was pleased, according to His wise and holy counsel, to permit, having purposed to order it to His own glory." "By this sin they fell from their original righteousness, and so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body." "They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed, and the same death in sin and corrupted nature conveyed to all their posterity, descending from them by ordinary generation." "From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all that is good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions." "This corruption of nature, and all the motions thereof, are truly and properly sin." "Every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of the righteous law of God, and contrary thereto, doth, in its nature, bring guilt on the sinner, whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God, and curse of the law, and so made subject to death, with all its miseries, spiritual, temporal, and eternal." "To all those for whom Christ hath purchased redemption, He doth certainly and effectually apply and communicate the same." "The rest of mankind God was pleased to pass by, and to ordain them to dishonour and wrath for their sin, to the praise of His glorious justice."
The Hopkinsian System.
This system fully agreed with the preceding one as far as the doctrines of the decrees and election are concerned. The former, as advocated by the majority of this school, differed from the latter, in denying the imputation of the guilt of the sin of Adam to his posterity, and in affirming a general atonement for the sins of the race, and the consequent free offer of pardon and eternal life to every sinner on earth. But what, in the judgment of all its advocates, constituted the all-crowning excellence and glory of this system was the dogma, that by the Fall mankind have lost all moral, but not natural, power to obey the commands of God, and accept the grace of eternal life. By the most distinguished theologians of this school, discourses were published under the title, Mankind have NATURAL, but not MORAL, Power to break the Decrees of God. The non-elect, it was boldly asserted, have this form of power to break the decree of reprobation, and thus secure their salvation.
The Exercise Scheme.
This scheme, the theory of which Dr. Emmons was the leading representative, if not the author, agreed with that last presented in denying the imputation of the guilt of Adam's sin to his posterity. It also denied all desert of eternal doom on account of a fallen nature derived from him. It also, in common with the Hopkinsian theory, affirmed the doctrine of general atonement, and of natural ability. Man is responsible, the advocates of the Exercise Scheme affirmed, but for his voluntary choices, determinations, and acts of obedience or disobedience to the known will of God. The peculiarity which distinguished this from each of the other theories, and from all others that ever had place in human thought, is, the dogma that God, while He imputes infinite guilt to the creature for all acts of disobedience, and actually inflicts upon the non-elect eternal doom for their sins, does, by the direct and immediate exertion of His own omnipotence, originate and render necessary in creatures all their volitions, choices, determinations, and acts, the holy and sinful alike. As none would object to the doctrine of the agency in God in originating choices and acts of obedience, the supreme effort of the advocates of this scheme was directed to the verification of the fact of Gods all-efficient agency in the production of sin.
Reasons and Grounds of my Election between these Systems.
Such were the systems between which I was—by the heated discussions taking place everywhere around me, and by the conviction that one of them, to the exclusion of each of the others, must be true—necessitated to make my election. Under the pressure of this conscious necessity I set about, in all honesty and sincerity, the solution of the problem before me. In contemplating the systems, it became at once perfectly evident to my mind that one and the same difficulty was strictly common to them all; namely, the absolute necessity of all creature volitions, choices, determinations, acts, and states, whether denominated sinful or holy; and that this necessity originated first in the eternal and unchangeable decree, and secondly in the agency, direct or indirect, of God Himself. God, Who is the revealed Father of the spirits and Former of the bodies of men, must be the Author of the nature which they have derived through Adam. According to all the systems in common, "God did from all eternity freely and unchangeably foreordain whatsoever comes to pass," and "doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest to the least, by His most wise and holy providence, according to His infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsels of His own will;" and has so "particularly and unchangeably" predestinated and foreordained elect and non-elect angels and men, that "their numbers cannot be either increased or diminished." According to the Exercise Scheme, God renders necessary actual sin in men by the direct action of His own omnipotence. According to each of the other systems, He renders the same identical forms of sin equally necessary by the fallen nature which He Himself, through the laws of natural generation, produces in them. In one case the agency of God is direct, and in the other indirect, but in both equally determining and necessary in its results, in the production of sin. If it would imply injustice in God to impute infinite guilt to men for sins which He directly originated, and rendered necessary in them, it would undeniably be equally unjust in Him to impute the same criminality to them for sins which He produces and renders necessary in them by means of a fallen nature which He produces in them through the laws of natural generation established by Himself. Besides, if it would be unjust in God to punish eternally creatures for sins which He produced in them, and rendered it impossible for them not to commit, how could it be just in Him to impute, as the Old School system affirms that He does, infinite guilt to them for a sin which they never committed at all? No objection, as I clearly saw, could be brought against the Exercise Scheme, which did not lie with equal weight against each of the others.
Then I saw with equal clearness that the distinction between natural and moral ability, on which the advocates of the Divine Efficiency and Hopkinsian systems insisted so much, was, when rightly apprehended, a senseless and deceptive distinction. The will of the creature, it was affirmed, is in its own nature equally capacitated for holiness and sin. That is, to become holy, the sinner does not need a new created will, but the right action of that which he has. For this reason natural ability to become holy was affirmed of all men. In other words, all men, the non-elect included, could become holy, accept of the grace of life, and be saved, if they should choose to do so. Nothing but their choice of the evil, and refusal of the good, prevents their salvation. But when the question is asked, "Can the sinner, in the circumstances and under the influences in and under which he does in fact choose the evil and refuse the good—can he, then and there, choose the good and refuse the evil?" "No," it is replied; "the sinner has no such power as that; that is, he is destitute of moral power to repent and turn to God." Now if in the identical circumstances and under the identical influences, in and under which they refuse the good and choose the evil, they have no power to choose the good and refuse the evil, sinners have no power whatever to obey the commands of God, and it is contradiction in terms to affirm that they have any such power.
In all the issues between this third and either of the other systems, it also soon became perfectly manifest to me, that the Scriptures most plainly and absolutely sustained the former. It is just as plainly and absolutely revealed that "Christ tasted death for EVERY man," as it is that He tasted death for ANY man; that "He is the propitiation for the sins of the WHOLE world," as it is that "He is the propitiation for our sins," the sins of believers. Then, when we stand face to face with eternal judgment, for what, and what only, according to the express teachings of the Word of God, are we to render an account? "For the deeds done in the body." Nothing else is ever referred to, when the awards of that day are set before us.
The principles of this third system, as I further clearly saw, simplified the whole subject of preaching the Gospel, and brought it, doctrine excepted, into perfect accordance with the manner in which Christ and His apostles preached the same Gospel. The revealed mission of Christ was to "call sinners to repentance," to summon them to "repent and believe the Gospel." The burden of apostolic preaching to sinners was, "repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." So this system affirmed, doctrine aside, that the only call to be made to sinners was, to "repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance." After I embraced this system, I practically and strictly conformed, in preaching the Gospel, to the method revealed in the example of Christ and His apostles, and all other inspired teachers of God's truth.
It was for such reasons as the above, that I rejected the Old School and Hopkinsian theories, and adopted and became a zealous advocate of that of Divine Efficiency. It was very easy for me to silence all objections adduced by the advocates of either of the other systems designated. The doctrine was repudiated and reprobated by such individuals as a monstrous absurdity. The doctrine that God, by the direct and immediate exertion of His own omnipotence, originates and renders necessary all human volitions and acts, and then holds men as alone responsible for the same, makes Him, they affirmed, an infinite tyrant. My reply was ready. "Which is the worst form of tyranny," I asked,—"the idea that God imputes infinite guilt to creatures for volitions and acts which He, by His own agency, causes them to put forth; or to impute to them the same guilt for a sin which they never committed at all? Which," I asked again, "imputes the most flagrant tyranny to God,—the idea that He holds men responsible for volitions and acts which He directly and immediately causes them to commit, or for volitions and acts which He renders it equally necessary for them to commit through a nature which He created in them? Must not the agency of God have the same efficiency in the one case as in the other?" No advocate of either of those schemes ever attempted a reply to such questions.
But when I looked, as I could not avoid doing from time to time, at the case as it is in itself, my mind shrank back appalled at the difficulties and perplexities presented. According to the united teachings of all the systems, angels and men not elected will, at the eternal judgment, be subjected to eternal doom, for nothing else but volitions and acts and states which they could by no possibility have avoided, for volitions, acts, and states which God, by an eternal and unchangeable decree, and by His own direct or indirect agency, rendered absolutely unavoidable. As these questions would force themselves upon my mind, I would forcibly turn away from them as suggestions of Satan. There they were, however, not merely as suggestions of Satan, but of my own thoughts, and as objections urged both by men of the world and by believers in the Churches. To avoid the questions and the issues presented was impossible.
The question, How can the doctrine of eternal decrees and election, and the consequent necessity of all creature volitions and acts, be reconciled with the fact of creature responsibility for the same? has ever been the vexed question of the Calvinistic faith in all its forms. Very commonly the question has been set aside as mysterious. When all the elements of a given judgment are distinctly known and apprehended, as I then clearly saw, the element of mystery can have no place in that judgment. This is true of the case before us. The elements of the predestinarian doctrine are twofold. I. God, by His eternal decree, and by His agency, direct or indirect, renders it absolutely impossible that all creature volitions and acts should not occur, and be, and become in all respects, just what they are. 2. God holds the creature alone responsible for these volitions and acts. There is not a feature or element in either of these propositions which is not perfectly understood. If they seem to be incompatible, the reason and only reason is that they are so, and one or the other of them must be false.
The only professed attempt we ever witnessed to verify and elucidate their compatibility was essayed by our Professor of Theology, when we were in the Theological Seminary. By one series of lectures he professedly proved that all creature volitions and acts are necessary, that is, cannot but occur and be what they are. By another series he professedly proved that creatures are responsible for their volitions and acts. The last proposition was to prove and elucidate the compatibility of these two doctrines. The argument of the Professor was in these words: "We have proved these two doctrines to be true, as matters of fact. That is, these two facts do exist. That is, they exist together. That is, they co-exist. That is, they co-sist. That is, they consist, or are consistent." A majority of the class could hardly restrain the most rapturous applause when the Professor had finished his exposition. When the same argument was presented to another class the next year, a fellow-student, who afterwards, as Dr. Stearns, became Presi- dent of Amherst College, remarked to us that some of the class came out of the recitation room with their eyes standing out as large as tea-saucers. "I tell you, that will stand," they exclaimed one to another. At length the question was put to the Professor: "Does your argument consist of anything else but a series of identical propositions?" On reflection, he admitted that such was the fact. "How, then, can anything be proven or elucidated by a series of identical propositions?" The argument, I believe, was never repeated afterwards. Such abortive attempts to reconcile the palpably incompatible rendered such incompatibility more palpable to my mind.
Another cause of embarrassment with me was passages of the Sacred Word upon which my mind would fall from time to time. For example, "Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?" God, according to the teachings of each of these systems, had, by an eternal decree, and by His own direct or indirect agency, rendered it impossible that His vineyard should bring forth anything but "wild grapes," and yet regards with wonder the fact that it did not bring forth "grapes," the kind of grapes that He had rendered it impossible it should bring forth: "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me." God, as we were taught and told, had by His own decree and agency rendered it impossible that those children should do anything else than rebel as they did; and then calls upon heaven and earth to unite with Him in astonishment at the fact, that those children had done what He had thus rendered it impossible that they should not do; as if He had placed a mass of water on an inclined plane, and then called upon the universe to unite with Him in amazement, that that water should run down instead of up that plane. Once more: "As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live." "Who will have all men to be saved." God, according to the united teachings of all these systems, did from all eternity "foreordain to eternal death" the non-elect, and so unchangeably and specifically determined their number that it can by no possibility "be either increased or diminished;" and then, during life, subjects them to such agencies and influences that they can do nothing but sin; and, finally, withholds from them all gracious influences, by which they might be induced to turn and live. He then affirms, under oath, that "He has NO pleasure in the death of the wicked," and has no desire or will in respect to him, but that he should turn and live.
Without utter dementation I could not but have stood astounded and appalled in view of such palpable and shocking incompatibilities as these. The attempt made by the most learned theologians to reconcile such contradictions rendered these palpable incompatibilities still more palpable. The only explanation offered was this: Sin and misery are, in themselves, evils. In itself considered therefore, God desires the holiness and happiness of all, and regrets the sin and misery of any. As, on the other hand, the glory of God and the highest good of the universe require the eternal misery of the non-elect, God, on the whole, chooses, foreordains, and in His-providence brings to pass this event. Yet, God has no pleasure at all in the death of the sinner, and has but one will and choice in regard to him, "that he should turn and live;" and yet, on the whole, chooses, and therefore ordains, and renders necessary this dire event. The reader will not be surprised to learn, that during the years in which I held and advocated this system, these contradictions and incompatibilities sat as a nightmare upon my spirits. But more of this hereafter.
CHAPTER VII.
FADING OUT OF PRIMAL LIGHT,
AND LOSS OF PRIMAL JOY AND POWER:
BREAKS IN THE CLOUD: LIFE UTILITIES.
FOR at least four or five years after my conversion there was, on the whole, with intervals of clouds and darkness, an increase of primal light, joy, and power in my experience. Then the light gradually grew dim, joy became less and less full, and power was succeeded by weakness, until I knew what is meant by "the aching void within," the looking back with sorrowful regret to "the blessedness I knew, when first I saw the Lord." I recollect, with perfect distinctness, my first step out of that primal light in the direction of darkness. On my return to College, after the close of my winter's school, I found myself in a state of great physical exhaustion, consequent on excessive labours in the revival which had occurred in the school and community where I had been. At the same time I was behind my class in my studies. Such questions as these, consequently, pressed upon my mind; namely, "How can I recuperate my enfeebled health? How can I regain the ground lost by absence from College? And, lastly, how can I lead my class in present studies?" as I confess with shame I had an ambition to do. While pondering these questions, the inward purpose was distinctly formed that study now—till lost ground was recovered, and I was in the forefront of my class—should be my great concern, and that for the recovery of my health I would take much exercise, and freely intermingle in the innocent social amusements in which my religious associates engaged.
I here state as accurately as possible the secret operations of my mind at the time referred to. The result was, that while not a day passed without careful reading of the Sacred Word and secret prayer, at least morning and evening, less time than formerly was spent in these hallowed exercises, and there was more of haste, less of fervency in them. Such facts did not alarm me, because they were not wholly unexpected, and especially because supreme thought was then occupied in other directions. At length, and before I was aware,—so gradually did the light recede and the darkness come on,—"the brightness of the Divine rising" faded out into a dim twilight, which was at times so obscured as to render the darkness around me so deep as to be felt. I drew a delusive and perilous consolation from the thought that my studies, which were a necessary preparation for my future work as a minister, were in themselves incompatible with deep spirituality, and that when I should enter the Theological Seminary all would be changed. I should then find myself bathed in spiritual light, all my studies being of a religious character. Multitudes of sinners lose their souls by flattering themselves that by-and-by they will find themselves under influences which will spontaneously bear their spirits heavenward. So, many professing Christians, and candidates for the ministry among the rest, content themselves with present backslidings, low attainments, and worldly mindedness, by attributing all to present surroundings, and by promising to themselves future changes of circumstances and influences under which "their righteousness shall go forth as brightness."
This I affirm, as the result of thirty years' observation and experience as President of Colleges, that in no period of life need a student be more spiritually minded, or maintain a closer or more uninterrupted walk with God, than when in a most diligent and successful pursuit of College studies. God would not have any of His children, for a single day or hour, engage in any form of thought or activity in which they cannot be "fervent in spirit" as well as "diligent in business." "There is no work nor device," nor method of doing any work lawful to a believer in Jesus, in the diligent pursuit of which he may not "walk in the light as God is in the light." A slight departure from this sacred principle, and doing nothing but things lawful and right in themselves, but without being careful to have "ALL my work wrought in God," rendered, for years to come, "my days of darkness many," and my periods of repentings long continued and bitter. It is less difficult for an impenitent sinner to find the path of life than it is for a believer to regain the way of holiness after he has wandered from it.
Other influences combined with these to extinguish gradually primal joy, enfeeble primal faith, diminish primal power, and deepen the obscurity of the twilight which was gathering around me. Nearly one-half of the students were professors of religion and candidates for the ministry. Among these the three schools of Calvinism were fully represented, and the members of each school were exceedingly zealous for the form of doctrine which they had embraced. Hence religious thought and conversation, during my College life, took almost exclusively the form of doctrinal discussion. In the atmosphere of religious thought around us there was a continuous collision of conflicting systems, and the same issues were continuously repeated, to wit, the conflicting claims of the systems under consideration. The subject of personal holiness was but seldom alluded to. We had our Theological Society, which met once a week for the discussion of religious truth. In all our discussions mere doctrine, in its controversial aspect, was the exclusive theme. Thus the main direction of religious thought and discourse led the mind and heart further and further from their true and proper centre. Zeal for doctrine, and "hungering and thirsting after righteousness," are totally diverse spiritual states. They are not incompatible the one with the other, and when the former is duly tempered by the latter, each strengthens the other. But when doctrine, as such, becomes the leading subject of thought and discourse, zeal for doctrine not only displaces vital godliness, but wars in the members as a deceitful and hurtful lust, generating pride, contention, and every evil work. Among all the "whited sepulchres" which abound in our churches, none are more full of "dead men's bones and all manner of uncleanness" than are our doctrinal zealots.
Not only was the main drift of religious, thought and discourse in the direction of mere doctrinal issues, but of issues which had not the remotest tendency to present God to the mind as a God of love, but to deaden all our religious sensibilities. Think of the dogmas that God holds the human race as "deserving His wrath and curse not only in this world, but in that which is to come," and actually dooms the non-elect to the eternal endurance of that wrath and curse—for what? For one sin of one individual, a sin committed when they did not exist at all; for a fallen nature derived from Adam, and divinely induced through the laws of natural generation; a nature in the origination and constitution of which they had no more agency than they had in the creation of the universe; and for actual transgressions which the possession of that nature, thus divinely induced and constituted, rendered it absolutely impossible that they should not commit. Let these dogmas, as representing the essential principles of the government of God, stand between the mind and the moral attributes of our Jehovah, and necessitate it to apprehend and view the latter through the former. But one result can follow, a deep eclipse of the glory, love, grace, justice, mercy, and every moral perfection of the Divine Nature. Then think of the dogma which was held and zealously advocated— namely, that God, by the direct exertion of His own omnipotence, induces and necessitates the sins which creatures do commit, and then charges them with infinite criminality, and actually inflicts upon the non-elect eternal doom, for the sins, the non-commission of which by them He thus renders absolutely impossible! Such aspects of the Divine character and government, whenever they came directly before my mind, would sit as a nightmare upon all my moral and religious sensibilities, not unfrequently forcing upon me painful and agonising doubts as to the truth of religion itself. An increasing dimness of primal light could not but result from such influences.
I will refer to but one other leading cause of the decline of vital godliness among religious students in College. I refer to the manner in which religion itself was practically treated by the College authorities. Twice a day, morning and evening, the students were required to meet in the chapel for public prayer. The evening services were conducted by the President, or leading Professors. The morning services were, for the most part, conducted by the tutors, a majority of whom were godless men, who did not even profess to be Christians at all. One of these, for example, received his appointment at the meeting of the trustees at the close of a College year. During the subsequent vacation I met with an associate of this man, a student in a law office. "When we heard of his appointment," remarked this individual, "a jolly party of us were together in a room in a public-house, making merry over the social glass. We told him that, as a Tutor, he would be called upon to take his turn in leading the devotional exercises at College. 'That,' he replied, 'I shall never do.' 'Yes, you will,' we answered; 'and if you desire it, we will go up to the College, and hold your face for you when you pray.'" I remember well the first so-called prayer he made in the College chapel. Our class were then attending a course of chemical lectures, and the last subject which had been treated of was crude tartar. As we rose to leave the chapel after the mock service was completed, a class-mate, afterwards the Rev. Joel Parker, D.D. said to me, "That, sir, is the crude tartar of prayer." So it was, and such were the prayers we almost daily heard from those godless tutors. No one can conceive the fatal influence exercised upon the impenitent portion of the students, or the deadening effect upon those professing godliness, by such mock presentations, daily made, of our sacred religion. Had it been the fixed purpose of the College authorities to desecrate religion in the eyes of the irreligious, and render it a dead letter with the religious portion of their students, no method more perfectly adapted to this end could have been devised.
Breaks in the Cloud.
Under the influences above referred to, "the bright shining of the Divine rising" was succeeded by a dim twilight. Yet I never so far lost sight of the end to which my life was devoted as not to arrange all my studies in deliberate subordination to it. Nor did I at any time altogether suspend active labours for the salvation of souls. In connection with several others, of a spirit kirdred to my own, I organised Sabbath Schools and Conference Meetings in the destitute neighbourhoods adjoining the College, and earnestly laboured to lead sinners to Christ. I made, also, frequent visitations to the various communities where I had been instrumental in promoting revivals of religion, and pressed upon the converts and others the necessity of "holding the beginning of their confidence steadfast unto the end." My vacations, those of winter especially, I devoted, as far as practicable, to special efforts in the interests of "saving souls from death." With much intensity my heart continuously burned within me in reference to the cause of missions in home and foreign lands. Thus I was preserved from the death ways of the backslider, and was kept in a state in which I was constantly "holding forth the word of life." My lamp never went out, though for a time it shed but a glimmering light.
Life Utilities.
Having selected the ministry for life-occupancy, the question arose with full distinctness before my mind, How can I be prepared to discharge, acceptably to God, and with required utility to the Church and the world, the functions of that sacred office? Not a few candidates for the ministry seemed to regard themselves, in the progress of their education, as passive recipients of influences through which they would be moulded into "vessels meet for the Master's use." In this, as I perceived, they were totally mistaken. Self-education, with fixed reference to my sacred calling, as I saw, was the most essential and indispensable condition of due preparation. I must understand my natural gifts and adaptations, and also my natural defects and deficiencies, and by a process of self-discipline develope and perfect the former and correct the latter. For the benefit of students for the ministry, I here record some of the measures which I adopted as a means to the end under consideration.
My fixed habit of labouring in Sabbath Schools, speaking in Conference Meetings, and other religious assemblies, while I was a student in College, and in the Theological Seminary, was prompted by two deliberately entertained motives—present usefulness, and needful preparation for my future calling. It is a notorious fact that not a few of our most able and learned ministers are an encumbrance whenever they appear in the Sabbath school, and do not know at all how to edify a parlour or conference or prayer meeting. They are at home nowhere but when delivering a formal discourse before some great gathering or Sabbath assembly. One of the most popular preachers of the past generation was selected to deliver an address to the children at a large Sabbath School Convention. He commenced his address with these words "Children, religion is both objective and subjective. I propose to speak to you upon the subject from these two standpoints." This very classic and scientific introduction fully prepared the children to go to sleep, and to begin their sports by pinching each other's sides. When another such minister had concluded a similar speech, the, children were heard to say one to another, "He speaks like a fool;" the speaker having acted under the delusion that in order to interest and be understood by children, he must appear silly. A similar want of adaptation is often shown by such ministers, when attempting to speak in a conference or prayer meeting. What else could be expected from individuals, after a ten years' insulation from common religious thought and discourse, and a corresponding incarceration with the classics, mathematics, sciences, doctrines, and laws of Biblical interpretation? These are all excellent preparative helps to individuals whose thoughts and hearts are with God, on the one hand, and with the religious thought and discourse of the Church and community around them, on the other. Eight to twelve years' insulation insures a disqualification about as complete for the divinely revealed functions of the pulpit, as for those of the Sabbath school, the conference, prayer, or inquiry meeting.
The leading idea of a perfect sermon, when I was a student in theology, was its classical precision. There was a positive prejudice against illustrating truth by reference to familiar facts and events in the community and world around us. One of my class-mates, for example, in a discourse submitted for criticism before our Professor of Rhetoric, represented the sinner as borne on by an almost resistless current, with the Niagara Falls before him. The illustration was very strongly objected to as unclassical. Scylla and Charybdis should have been substituted for Niagara. I recollect the first sermon I read for criticism before the class and our Professor of Sacred Rhetoric. The discourse was written with the specific intent that it should be preached before future audiences the subject was selected with reference to a specific effect, and all the illustrations were from objects and events with which such audiences are familiar. As soon as the reading of the discourse was completed, a furious tempest of criticisms fell upon it from all directions. The plan and style of the discourse, the illustrations especially, were not classical. In those criticisms the Professor joined, giving us sage advice in regard to the fixed plan to which our discourses should conform advice which, I rejoice to record, I never followed. A short time subsequent to this, it came to my turn to occupy the pulpit of the seminary chapel on a Sabbath evening. I preached the discourse referred to, and preached it as read before the class the mass of the students, and a large gatheting from the community around, being present. For a long period after that, a leading theme of conversation among the students was that sermon, the wonder of all being the fixed attention with which it was listened to by the entire audience. It was a most profound mystery to my class-mates how and why it was that such an unclassical discourse should thus affect its auditors. During the week following, I had occasion to call upon my Professor. I found there the Principal of the Academy conversing with the Professor about that sermon. "Mr. Mahan," said the visitor, "your audience last Sabbath evening paid you a very great compliment by the fixed attention with which they listened to your discourse."
I was never censured by a Professor or fellow-student for a want of diligence in any one of my studies. I did not, however, as most of them did, incarcerate myself in those studies, but kept my thoughts, and heart, and activities in warm contact with the religious thought, and discourse, and activities around me,—a point which they sadly neglected. Hence, years passed in their pastoral experience with no visible fruits of their labours, while three months of my first pastorate had not elapsed before I found myself in the midst of a glorious revival no such work existing in any of the Churches around me. I not only found myself in the midst of such a scene, but equally at home in the pulpit, and in the conference, prayer, and inquiry meetings.
One of the chief employments of the minister of Christ is sermonising. Not a few learned preachers who are deeply read in theological and biblical lore, find it very difficult to select, from the wide field of knowledge before them, specific topics for their sermons. Mountain masses of pure gold are before them, but they do not know how to detach from the mass a fitting piece, and coin it for general use. The reason is the fundamental defect of prior training. During the revival which occurred in connection with the last school that I taught, I had occasion, as I have stated, to deliver three discourses each week of a half hour to an hour's continuance. Each discourse was from a mentally prepared plan, and, with hardly an exception, upon a subject on which I had never spoken before. While I was engaged in prayer and devout meditation, each discourse spontaneously took form before my mind, so that I was never at a loss what to say. As I reflected upon the subject, I said to myself, "Here is a habit which I must perpetuate as a means of future usefulness." I accordingly, on my return to College, induced a number of my special friends to meet with me weekly, for the purpose of reading to each other plans of sermons, our fixed rule being that each plan presented should be a newly prepared one. In those meetings our discussions were not doctrinal, but experimental. Lifelong benefits resulted to each of us therefrom. In reading the Sacred Word, as I approached a certain passage, the great truth concealed in it would spontaneously rise up, and become transfigured before my mind, and that with ecstatic effect upon my sensibilities. Whatever my employments were, I always, if practicable, stopped at once, and put down the train of thought thus suggested. As a consequence of this fixed habit of religious thought, I found myself, when I entered upon pastoral duty, already furnished with more than one hundred well-planned discourses on most important pulpit themes; and, as another result of this habit, that number of pre-planned discourses was never diminished. How often did my ministerial brethren say to me, "You are always ready for any occasion on which you are called to preach or speak." So may every candidate for the ministry find himself in all future time thus ready, if he will now form and cultivate the habit under consideration.
Cultivation of the Voice.
How often do our ministers fail through bronchial affections, and the loss of their voices, especially as they advance in life! Is this at all necessary? Do not these evils result wholly from the want of proper vocal training? Permit me to adduce two important facts bearing upon this subject.
My College class and room mate and myself each had a very feeble voice. Neither of us could, without the greatest difficulty, so speak as to be heard by any audience of two or three hundred persons. I perceived clearly that the difficulty in my case must be remedied, or my education would be a failure. Without any instruction whatever, I set about a daily exercise of vocal self-training. I ascertained, first of all, the pitch of voice from which I could speak with most ease and distinctness, and with the least effort throw my voice to the greatest distance. I then maintained, during my entire College and Seminary course, the daily habit of reading aloud from that pitch of voice. The result was, that when I entered the ministry, the strength and compass of my voice, and the ease and distinctness with which I spoke, were everywhere remarked upon by those who heard me. When I was in England in 1849-50, for example, I once addressed an audience of more than ten thousand persons in Free Trade Hall, Manchester, and with perfect ease made myself distinctly heard by that entire throng. When I returned to London, after an absence of some twenty-six years, those who had heard me before often said to me, "Your voice is now as clear and strong as it was when you were here before." Now, at the age of eighty-two years, that voice still remains unbroken. I find no difficulty in making myself distinctly heard by any audience which I have occasion to address.
But how about my room and class mate, whom I often admonished, but in vain, to do as I was doing? After completing, with the highest honours, his College and Seminary course, he found the ministry utterly barred to him by the want of a voice to make himself heard by the smallest congregations that might desire to employ him. Such was the statement which, with deep sadness, he made to me, after his education was finished. He consequently spent his life as assistant clerk or secretary in the service of a Missionary Society. Ministers would think it absurd and wicked to enter the sacred office without some mental training. Is it not absurd to attempt to speak for God and humanity with a rude and untrained voice? I never enter the pulpit without a mentally prepared discourse. Nor do I, when it can be done, without a special preparation of the voice.
Scripture and Hymn Reading.
To me one of the most painful parts of religious worship is the manner in which the Scriptures and hymns are commonly read before Christian congregations, and above all, the rapid, undevotional, and irreverential manner in which the Lord's Prayer is commonly repeated in our churches. A dinner was once given to a celebrated actor in Cincinnati, Ohio. During the conversation after dinner he remarked that he had for twenty or thirty years made the Lord's Prayer a subject of special study, for the purpose of learning how it should be recited, and then reciting it according to his own ideal. "But," he added, "I have only been able to make a somewhat near approach to that ideal." He was requested to recite the prayer, and did so. After the recitation not a word was spoken by any one present. Each individual arose and left the place in deep and solemn silence. It does seem to me, that reverence for Him who dictated the prayer, as well as the sentiments it expresses, should induce ministers of Christ to repeat that prayer with a somewhat similar impressiveness. For myself, I can say with truth that from the commencement of my ministry to the present time, no part of my pulpit exercises has commanded more deep and fixed attention from my audiences than have my readings of Scripture and hymns. I study my chapters and hymns, and ponder their meaning, just as I do my sermons, before I go into the pulpit. This I have ever held as a fixed maxim, that if my preliminary readings shall command the fixed attention of my audiences, the after exercises will be profitable; and if there is a failure in the preliminaries, the entire service will be of little account.
The three facts which I am about to state will, in the judgment of not a few, subject me to the imputation of vanity and desire of praise. My motive, as God sees it, is to "provoke to jealousy" my ministerial brethren, and, if possible, to fix the attention of candidates for the ministry upon this most important subject. A celebrated actor in the United States left the stage, taught elocution, and gave readings in various cities in the country. He was paid one hundred dollars for a single evening reading in Adrian, Mich., where I was at that time living. When we were leaving the auditorium, at the close of the exercises, one of the best judges of reading in the city made this remark to me: "I would go much farther to hear you read once more the third chapter of the First Epistle of John than I would to hear again all that I have heard this evening."
When seated in the pulpit of a ministerial friend in Cincinnati, Ohio, listening to a discourse which he was delivering, he suddenly became faint, and, turning to me, requested me to read the closing hymn, and finish the exercises. I did so, reading the hymn offhand. The next day, on calling upon another ministerial friend in the city, I was introduced to two ladies,—one of them from Brooklyn, N.Y.,—who were seated in a carriage which stood at the door of my friend's house. "What do you suppose those women were talking about when you came up?" asked my friend, as they drove away. "They were at Brother Clark's church last evening, and were talking about the manner in which you read that hymn. 'I never in my life heard a hymn so well read,' said the lady from Brooklyn; and the Cincinnati lady expressed a similar judgment." "If such reading as mine, especially in such circumstances, attracts such attention, what," I said to myself, "must be the reading of those celebrated pulpit elocutionists in Brooklyn?"
When in London, I had occasion to supply, for several successive Sabbaths, the pulpit of a pastor who was sick. A gentleman from Edinburgh attended those exercises. Before leaving, he said to a friend of mine, a leading merchant in the city, "I would any time walk three miles to hear that man read a single chapter in the Bible." Here I inwardly exclaimed again, "How imperfectly must those renowned Professors and preachers in Edinburgh read the Scriptures before their audiences!" I hardly fear a contradiction, when I affirm that the manner in which the Scriptures and hymns are, for the most part, publicly read by ministers on both sides of the Atlantic is a disgrace to the pulpit. In deep sincerity I say it, that I do not regard myself as, in the true sense of the term, a good reader; and I have always accepted with deep regret, as evidence of the deficiencies of my brethren, the marked commendations which my readings everywhere receive.
But how, it may be asked, did I become the reader I am? In the same manner, I answer, in which I came to be possessed of the voice I now have. In all my daily readings, I first put to myself the distinct question, "How should this passage be read?" To determine the appropriate answer, I conceived the thought before me as lying in the mind of an individual who was possessed of a strong desire to convey to listeners an exact apprehension of the thought, with a corresponding impression of its importance. "How," I then asked myself, "would such an individual in that state of mind utter those words?" I then conformed my reading as nearly as possible to the ideal thus obtained. I was greatly encouraged in the course I had adopted by a remark made to me by a very distinguished lawyer, a Christian man, who admired my manner in the pulpit. "Bear this in mind," he said, "that the nearer your manner of preaching conforms to earnest conversation the more perfect it will be."
When I was in England, nearly thirty years ago, this statement appeared in the London Times, that "the graduates of the English Universities, with all their boasted lore, cannot read their English Bibles." The meaning was obvious, to wit, that such graduates could not so read the Sacred Word as to represent the meaning of what they read. That statement is as true of the graduates of those Universities to-day as it was then; and is not more true of them than of the graduates of the Scotch and Irish Universities, and of those of the Universities, Colleges, and Seminaries of the United States. Let the reader bear this in mind, that while you may be greatly helped by proper teachers, you can become good readers, and have strong voices, only as Dernosthenes and Cicero became great orators, by self-training and discipline; and that every scholar is without excuse who is not a good reader, and has not a strong Voice.
CHAPTER VIII.
DISAPPOINTED HOPES: SEMINARY LIFE.
"THE kingdom of God cometh not by observation." "The kingdom of God is within you." "The just shall live by faith." "By grace ye are saved, through faith." When out at sea the attention of the voyager is sometimes arrested by the spectacle of immense icebergs, which lift their bright sunlit summits far above the surface of the ocean. These objects are never at rest, but are always moving in some definite direction, not unfrequently in opposition to that of the winds and the waves. These objects also appear to be very little affected by what is passing upon the surface of the ocean. The waters are sometimes higher up, sometimes lower down, their surfaces, and the winds and the waves often beat violently against their sides. They are never, however, lifted up or let down, or moved, or shaken, by the waters around them. Nor are they quickened, or retarded, or changed in direction by any surface influences around them. They are above and below, and independent of all visible contingencies. The reason is that while their summits are ever heaven-illumined, their lower portions have touched and sunk down into that under ocean current which is ever moving in one and the same fixed direction, and is never disturbed by what is occurring upon the upper surface. Such is the state, and life, and life-course of the true believer, who is "full of faith and of the Holy Ghost," who by the cross has been "crucified to the world, and the world to him," and who knows by experience what is really and truly meant by such words as "Christ in you the hope of glory," "That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, and ye be rooted and grounded in love," "In Whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory," and "The Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended." A mind in whose inner life such eternal verities have become consciously real, cannot be elevated or depressed by external circumstances, nor be turned from the fixed course of its heaven-directed activities. The source and cause of its peace lie too deep in the centre of the soul to be disturbed by surface events. Christ is the life of such a mind, and He is within as an all-vitalising and heaven-impelling power. Hence it never thinks of present surrounding as rendering difficult or impossible "walking in the light as God is in the light," or expects newness of life from change of circumstances. In every state in which it is, it learns how to be content, because in every state alike it finds Christ. When "Christ dwells in our hearts by faith," and we "abide in Him," all external influences are to the soul, in diverse forms, a means of grace, and all in common combine to accelerate its heaven-directed course.
Most believers, on the other hand, advance or recede, rise or fall, with the tide of events and influences around them. At periods few and far between, under a clear sky and borne forward by favouring gales, they are seen passing joyfully onward in their heaven-directed course, singing as they sail. Then, for still longer periods, they lie becalmed and powerless for any heavenward movement. Then they are driven backward or turned from their course by adverse circumstances. Then again they are "weary, tossed with tempests, and not comforted." "They go up by the mountains, they go down by the valleys; they reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end." There is nothing stable in their inner life, unless it be "an aching void the world can never fill." They always think of present circumstances as incompatible with deep spirituality, and are always hoping for and promising to themselves a change of influences, under which all the Christian graces and virtues will revive, and assume forms of glorious beauty and perfection. In all such expectations they are doomed to sad disappointment. If soul life could be induced by change of circumstances, one important passage should be blotted from the sacred page, namely, "The just shall live by faith."
Such, however, is the illusion under which College life is very commonly spent. "Present studies are incompatible with deep spirituality. In the Theological Seminary all will be changed. All studies then will be religious, and a sacred and all-sanctifying atmosphere will encircle and hang over us, then and there." Vain expectation which, when painfully disappointed here, looks forward to the ministry as the golden era for the development of the Christian life, and is doomed to a still sadder disappointment. To an individual who is not "full of faith and of the Holy Ghost," no sphere of lawful human activity is, or can be, more unfavourable to deep heart spirituality, or encircled with greater temptations to pride, envy, love of applause, and worldly-mindedness, than is the ministry. All the observations of a ministerial life of more than fifty years' continuance absolutely verify such statements. "Unstable as water" must be the characteristic of the experience of every believer whose piety is determined mainly by external influences, and not "by the power of an endless life" within the soul itself. This is my solemn advice and admonition to every candidate for the ministry, and to every believer who would do effective service in the kingdom of grace: "Tarry," just where you are, "until you are endued with power from on high." Hear the absolute command of Christ: "Depart not," but, "in prayer and supplication," "wait the promise of the Father," until God's mantle of power shall fall upon you. Then, "in the power of the Spirit," go forth to your College or theological studies, or into the sacred ministry, or to any word or work to which God by His Spirit and Providence shall call you. Do this, and in every sphere of activity alike "you will shine as a light in the world," and all external circumstances and influences will combine to increase and intensify that light. Everywhere you will be girded with everlasting strength, and, "as a prince, you will have power with God and with men." Let us now turn to a direct consideration of the
Facts and Observations of my Seminary Life.
I very well recollect an impression which I received immediately after I had got settled in my room in one of the Seminary Halls. I had gone out into our long wood shed to saw some wood. I met there a number of the most influential members of the upper classes in the Institution, all perfect strangers to me. Without uttering a word myself, I listened to their conversation. There was nothing morally impure about it yet not a word fell upon my ear to indicate that I was in Bethel or Jericho among "the sons of the prophets." "Foolish talking and jesting" was all I heard, and the entire manner clearly indicated that what I heard was a visible manifestation of the inner life of those talkers. A shuddering chill came over my spirits, as I felt that what I then saw and heard foteshadowed my bitter disappointment in regard to the imagined purity and sanctifying power of the atmosphere which encircles our "schools of the prophets." Nor did anything occur during my three years' continuance at the Seminary to relieve the impressions thus early received. Never was I in an atmosphere less morally and spiritually vitalising than that which encircled us during those three years. The President of our College sent an ungodly son to the Seminary the same year I entered it. He was sent, not as a theological student, of course, but professedly to enlarge and perfect his linguistic education. The real intent of the father was the conversion of his son through the saving influence which was supposed to pervade the institution. The young man left no less ungodly than he was when he came among us; no influence encircling him, while there, which tended to any higher result. The character of the moral and spiritual atmosphere which encircled the Seminary was a topic of frequent conversation among the students, all, with one consent admitting and affirming it to have been as above indicated. "When I am out among the people in vacation," said one of the most conscientious students to me one day "when I am out among the people in vacation, I have no disposition to joke and trifle, such as commonly obtains here. I feel serious then and there. But as soon as I get back here, all my seriousness is gone in a moment, and I joke and trifle as others do"
One fact I then heard stated by not a few of the oldest and later graduates, as uniformly characterising the experience of students in their passage through the Seminary. After being there for a season, instead of finding themselves, as they expected to be, "strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power," they passed through a period in which their inner life was almost paralysed by painful and agonising doubts of the truth of our Divine religion itself. Various reasons were assigned for this very common experience, but what I regard as the true one was never stated. Happy, thrice happy was he who graduated as "strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might," as "rooted and grounded in love," as fixed in faith, and as joyful in God, as he was when he commenced his theological course.
Permit me to adduce a single fact in illustration of the above statements. More than thirty years since, when spending a period in the city of Newark, N.J., and preaching in the midst of a very powerful revival of religion, I observed among my hearers, upon a Sabbath, a very intelligent-looking stranger, who listened with the deepest attention to all I said. Having occasion, the next morning, to be absent from the city for a few hours, on a visit to the family of a brother-in-law, Professor Strong, at New Brunswick, I found in the same car with myself this stranger. As soon as he saw me, he came and sat by my side. "I listened," he remarked, "with deep interest to the three discourses which you delivered in Newark yesterday. What struck me as especially peculiar about your discourses was the ease and freedom with which you spoke, all your discourses being extempore. Your discourses were perfectly systematic. There seemed to be a predetermined place for every thought, and every thought was in its place. Yet all your utterances were so free and spontaneous, like the outgushing of the waters from the rock when Moses had smitten it. In a few weeks I expect to graduate at the Theological Seminary at Princeton. This I confess to you, that I now find myself less free and less able to speak to edification in a prayer or conference meeting, or to any common religious assembly, than I was at the commencement of my theological course; and I approach the ministry with a painful disqualification for many of its most important functions. In respect to most of my public speaking, I am necessitated to speak from notes previously written out. And such I find to be the uniform and confessed experience of my fellow-students in all the classes. These facts we often confess to one another with deep regret. Is there any remedy for such evils? and if so, can you tell me what it is?" Such was the exact substance of the statements made to me by that student-stranger.
In my reply, I first referred to my own fixed habit, as a college and theological student, of mingling with the churches, and speaking in Sabbath schools, conference and prayer meetings, and holding special services in destitute neighbourhoods around; and advised him to urge upon all students in the lower classes to follow such an example. But what all must do is this, to "tarry" before God "in prayer and supplication," until "endued with power from on high," as the apostles and their associates were at the Pentecost. Then will the truth of God be in the heart "as a burning fire shut up in the bones," and "witnessing for Christ," and "speaking in the churches," and "unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort," will be as easy, and spontaneous, and vitalising as was the outflow of the waters from the rock referred to.
Let us now direct attention to the
Causes of the spiritual State of our Theological Institutions.
I have already referred to the expectation with which students uniformly approach such institutions, the expectation of finding them encircled with such a pure and sanctifying atmosphere, that the moral and spiritual activities will spontaneously assume a new and divinely vitalised direction; and have shown that through this expectation content with an unspiritual College life had been induced. Here we have the common mistake in religion, and its inevitable results. The mass of Christians expect sanctification, as far as they expect it at all, rather through external influences than through Christ dwelling in the heart by faith. In heaven itself, they seem to expect to be made holy rather by sight-seeing than by the indwelling presence and power of the Holy Ghost in the soul. Now, as long as higher spiritual states are expected from change of circumstances, and not sought by faith, all changes will be for the worse, and not for the better; and the ministry will be the most spiritually barren of all spheres of activity. We here find the real cause not only of the spiritual state of very many theological institutions, but of the periods of painful doubt of the real validity of the claims of Christianity itself. The student not only finds the atmosphere of the Seminary the opposite of what he anticipated, but finds all his efforts for the higher forms of life fruitless and vain. The result is a reaction, a moral and spiritual repulsion, in which the foundations of his faith seem to be falling away beneath him. Hence the period of painful doubt referred to.
Another, and a main, cause of the low moral and spiritual state under consideration was, the very limited apprehensions which then obtained in regard to "the grace of God which bringeth salvation." Apprehensions of Christ, as a Saviour from sin, were confined almost exclusively to the sphere of justification. Outside of this sphere, the great truth, "The just shall live by faith," was a dead letter at that time. The doctrine of "sanctification by faith" was not "so much as named among us." We heard nothing of it from the pulpit, or in the class-room, or among ourselves. Still less, if possible, did the doctrine of "the baptism of the Holy Ghost" have any place in the sphere of Christian thought in which we moved. The Pentecost, with all its moral and spiritual enduements of power, belonged to the apostolic age; to us nought remained but a dreary pilgrimage over that bog, that swamp of legalism described in Rom. vii. 14—25. This, as we were taught by all our Professors but one—and he differed from his associates only in the interpretation of this one passage—represents Christian experience in its best estate attainable in this life. Speaking upon this subject, the venerable Dr. Woods said to us one day: "If there were somewhere a hospital in which souls could be made whole, I should go there as a patient." Thus ignorant were all in common of "the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness," and of "the rising of the Sun of Righteousness with healing in His wings." In College we expected healing and health from the vitalising atmosphere which encircled the Seminary; and in the Seminary, from that which encircled the ministry. In neither sphere did we find either healing or health, but increasing feebleness under the pressure of "the body of this death."
Finding at length that I was being changed, not "from glory to glory," but from weakness to weakness, I said to myself, "I know that I have missed my way;" and I waited before God, in the devout study of His Word, and in fervent prayer, until I found myself in the presence of the "fountain opened," and of the unveiled face of "the Sun of Righteousness." When God's Spirit brought me here, with joy unspeakable I exclaimed in these very words, "There is healing here." Yes, here is the spot where every soul may be "made every whit whole."
I refer to but one other, and to this as the chief cause of the low state of spirituality in our Theological Institutions. A Theological Seminary, surely, should be and may be "holy ground," "the house of God," and a "gate of Heaven." Here is the sacred sanctuary that stands next to that "most holy place," "the Ministry of Reconciliation." No man, however learned, is at all qualified to teach, or to study, God's truth, who is not "full of faith, and of the Holy Ghost." "No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost." How, then, can any man teach and study, as required, God's truth, but upon the condition that "the eyes of his understanding are enlightened," to discern and "know the things which are freely given us of God?" "The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God." "The Eternal Spirit," Who inspired the Word, must be an expositor of its teachings, and of the truth it reveals, or we shall never, in the highest sense, understand what we read, teach, or study. Truth, as apprehended by any mind not Divinely enlightened, is "a dead letter." When "spiritually discerned" and taught, it becomes transfigured before the inner vision of the teacher and pupil, and acts upon the mind and heart of each with an all-vitalising power. No truth of God stands revealed in the Sacred Word but as a means to one and the same end, a saving and sanctifying effect upon the heart and mind of the reader; and no such truth is rightly apprehended or taught, but when it is so set forth as thus to act upon the mind.
When I affirm, that Divine truth, in all its forms, may and should be thus taught, "I speak what I do know, and testify what I have seen," as a teacher of theological students. The work on the Baptism of the Holy Ghost, for example, has been read by ministers and laymen not a few, among all Christian nations, and by many missionaries in foreign lands. The moral and spiritual influence of reading the work is "known and read of all men." I will venture to give a single fact as illustrative of such influence. A lady in Scotland sent some of these volumes to a Christian soldier in India. I have before me the letter written by that soldier to this lady some time after the books were received. "I take this opportunity," he says, writing from "Camp Kohat," March 17th, 1879, "before leaving this camp, to let you know that I received the books all right. Thank God for bringing them safe to us: for I can assure you, dear sister, they have been blessed to our souls very much. They have made us more earnest in praying to the Lord for His Holy Spirit to descend upon us. All the brethren have been at me, begging me to let them have a reading of them, and they are loud in their praise to God for the glorious truths they have revealed to us. We are like new creatures in Christ Jesus. Since we got the books, we are agreed as one in praying to God for the Higher Life; and we seem to be blessed more and more each time we pray for the Spirit." "We have been some time in this camp, and we have had a meeting each night, and the Lord has blessed us richly." Now every discourse in that book, two or three of the last excepted, was prepared and delivered as a part of a regular course of theological lectures to a class of theological students, and was sent to the publisher just as prepared and delivered. Such was the effect of these discourses, at the time of their deliverance, upon these students, that the entire institution was immediately flooded with revival influence. At another time I delivered, before the same class, a course of lectures on the Natural and Moral Attributes of God. No other course I ever delivered, on any subject, was more scientifically developed than this. The effect of these discourses was distinctly manifest in all our prayer meetings. "Never before," a theological student would be heard to exclaim, "did I have such an apprehension and impression of God, as I now have. He seems to be more near and real to me than is the atmosphere in which I move and which I breathe."
I simply state these facts, not for self-glory, but to render it evident that Divine truth, whether exegetically or doctrinally presented, never is, and never can be, rightly presented, but when the natural and uniform result is to bring the pupil upon his knees. A teacher of a class of candidates for the ministry, who is not himself "full of faith, and of the Holy Ghost," and does not so teach that the faith of his pupils shall stand, "not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God," is doing more than any other individual can do, to send men who are "not spiritual, but carnal," into the sacred office.
But how was God's truth taught in our Seminaries?
In the first place let me remark that our studies were divided into four distinct departments—Biblical Interpretation, Theology, Ecclesiastical History, and Sacred Rhetoric—one Professor standing at the head of each department. This was considered the fixed law of the institution, that each Professor should confine himself strictly to his own department, and so teach as not to intrude into that of the others. The Biblical Professor, for example, was to confine himself to a simple interpretation of the text without reference to the doctrine which the passage implied, and in reality set forth. So the Professor of Theology, in expounding doctrine, avoided any but the most incidental reference to the principles of interpretation. Sermonising had no place in our thoughts, until, at the commencement of our third year, we came before our Professor of Sacred Rhetoric. Here was a fundamental mistake. The pupil is merely carried over the upper surface of a passage, when he is not made to look down into the depths, and up to the heaven-illumined heights, of the great truth which such passage reveals. Whenever, in the progress of interpretation, any such truth is approached, the fact should be, to professor and pupil, a landing-place from whence there should be a distinct survey of "the length, and depth, and breadth, and height," of the glory infinite with which that truth is encircled. The pupil should be clearly taught not only what that truth is, but how to interpret and employ that passage to verify that truth. He should then be reminded of kindred passages which affirm and verify the same truth, and should be guarded against employing other passages which have been supposed to, but do not, verify such doctrine. A surface interpretation of Scripture renders the Word of God a dead letter. And such, for the most part, were our Biblical studies to us. The real interpreter is, not a systematic, but a real, teacher of doctrine; and the real Professor of Theology is a systematic Biblical interpreter, always showing his pupils how to apply the laws of interpretation in the elucidation and verification of Christian doctrine. It was the absence of these essentials to vitalising teachings that rendered our Biblical studies, not only barren of spiritual influence, but in reality a " ministration of death."
From the Biblical Class Room, we turn now to that of Theology. Here systematic theology was studied as we had studied our system of geometry, or mental science; that is, as a mere matter of doctrine. Standing by itself, as a mere question of truth or error, what moral or spiritual bearing, for example, has the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ? No more, we answer, than has the great fact, that the sun is the centre of the solar system. The same holds true of the doctrine of the Trinity, and all other kindred doctrines. This question was once put to a great American statesman: "Do you believe such doctrines as the Trinity, and the Divinity of Christ?" "I do," was the reply. "None but an Almighty Saviour can meet my wants as a sinner." When we contemplate Christ,—as manifested to "take away our sins"—as our "wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption"—as our "Advocate with the Father"—as "Lord of all," and "Judge of quick and dead," then the question, whether He is finite or infinite, whether the "Word was God," or a creature like ourselves, becomes one of infinite and all-impressive interest to our minds. Viewed as a mere doctrine, the question has, in reality, no moral and spiritual bearings whatever. It was as doctrine, that every truth of God was set before us in the Theological Class-room. We solved our problems of theology as we had done those of geometry, when in College, and with no more seriousness or reverence in the one case than in the other. With the most painful interest the question often came home to my mind: "How can individuals reverentially set before the people truths which they have so irreverentially studied in the school of the prophets?" In thus studying God's truth, the pupil not only receives a moral and spiritual paralysis in his inner life, but becomes habituated to cold and unvitalising apprehensions and presentations of God's eternal verities to the Church and the world. Such facts will sufficiently account for the moral and spiritual atmospheres which too commonly encircle our Theological Seminaries.
CHAPTER IX.
PASTORAL OFFICE AND LIFE.
AFTER more than two years spent in preparatory studies, four years of College, and three of Seminary life, and one year in agencies and miscellaneous ministerial duties, I found myself in a new and untried relation, that of a pastor over a "flock of God," an "angel" of a church of Christ. In my distinct regard the office was a most sacred and responsible one. Before me, and around me, were a congregation and people made up of two classes,—the non-professors, or impenitent class; and the nominal church, one portion of whom were obviously self-deceived, and the other made up of true believers. Towards each of these classes my duty was obvious, and stood out with perfect and impressive distinctness before my mind. My chief functions, as a preacher of the everlasting Gospel, as I clearly and distinctly saw, pertained to the moral consciousness of my hearers; that is, by "the manifestation of the truth" I was to "commend myself to every man's conscience in the sight of God."
To the impenitent portion of my people my mission was, so to preach the Gospel to them as to induce among them "repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." This end I was to accomplish, not as it is too often attempted, by simply telling them that they were sinners, and then arraying before them the terrors of the Second Death. My mission, on the contrary, as I distinctly apprehended, was so to present the truth that it should be "a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart," that is, so to reveal to the sinner his real interior and exterior life that he should be self-convicted of his sin, of his desert of doom, and dire need of atoning grace, and thus be led to Christ, as "the only Name under heaven given among men whereby we can be saved." As the result of thus preaching the Gospel, I can now testify, that among the many thousands who have been professedly converted under my preaching, very few have apostatised from the faith. Indeed, I cannot recall the case of a single such convert who joined the church and was afterwards excommunicated.
In respect to the nominal membership of my church, I felt distinctly pressed down with responsibilities of infinite weight. My mission here was so to "take forth the precious from the vile, that I should be as God's mouth;" that is, so to present the essential characteristics of heart and life, the characteristics by which the genuine is distinguished from the self-deceived professor, that no one within the circle of the nominal fold should die in his sins, and his blood be not on his own head. There was no portion of the ministerial functions which pressed with greater weight upon my conscience than these, it being quite evident to every serious mind that not a few of those who have "a name to live are dead," and "their hopes at last will be as the giving up of the ghost." It was a source of deep consolation to me, on occasion of preaching a discourse before the church of my former charge in Cincinnati, to hear that this was said by my former hearers: "One thing is certain, that our old pastor has not lost the power or the habit of clearly discriminating between a living and a dead faith." By no possibility can an individual be in greater peril to his immortal interests than is the deceived professor of religion. Nowhere will the true pastor cause the true light to shine with greater clearness than upon the line which divides the living believer from "him who is dead while he lives."
But the most sacred and vital of all the functions of the ministry, as I then most distinctly and impressively apprehended, consisted in feeding Christ's lambs and sheep, in "feeding the flock of God, which He had purchased with His own blood;" in "building up the true believer in the most holy faith," and so instructing and leading him that he should "grow up into Christ in all things." The revealed object of His death, as I even then distinctly read, was to "redeem" believers "from all iniquity, and purify them unto Himself, as a peculiar people, zealous of good works;" to "sanctify and cleanse His church"—all true believers—"with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that she should be holy, and without blemish." The revealed object, as I then read, for which pastors and teachers are appointed, is "the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, the edifying of the body of Christ, until we all come, in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ;" and the revealed motive of the minister, in all his services, must be, to preach Christ, "warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus."
To make any approach towards such high ends, two things, as I then saw, were indispensable. In the first place, the pastor himself must be, in his interior and visible life, an "epistle" of Christ, "known and read of all men," and especially of the flock he feeds, so that he can say to the church, "Be ye followers of me, even as I am of Christ;" and, "Those things which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do and the God of peace shall be with you." In the second place, he must himself be so instructed in the way of the Lord that he shall be able to teach believers how to walk in the King's highway.
But my sphere of thought and influence, as I distinctly perceived, was not by any means confined to the circle of my local church or parish. I stood, under the eye of God, and before the world, as a minister of a great denomination and a member of the great brotherhood of saints. I also sustained other relations, as a citizen of a great commonwealth, and a member of the brotherhood of man. In all these relations vital issues pertaining to doctrine, moral principle, church order, and nation and world interests, were then pending. The great missionary and other benevolent movements, which constitute a leading characteristic of this age, were then coming into full operation. The Calvinistic denominations, with which I stood connected, were then agitated and convulsed with doctrinal issues, questions of church order, and methods of conducting revivals of religion. The great revivals which constitute the glory of that period stood openly connected with important questions of doctrine, and the proper methods of conducting revivals. The issues pressed in these revivals were the chief, if not exclusive, cause which occasioned the division of the Presbyterian Church. At this time, also, the national mind began to be violently agitated with the question of human rights, temperance, and other kindred issues. My natural temperament, and all my convictions of duty, rendered it impossible for me, not only not to be a neutral or inactive spectator in the midst of such movements, but also not to be an active participant in the same.
Such being the circumstances and relations in which I entered upon the duties of my public life, I felt that an early settlement of the principles and motives to which my future should be conformed was most imperiously demanded. To the distinct and deliberate settlement of such principles, my mind was early and specifically directed; and I did not rest until they were fully and finally determined. This subject I commend to the serious and prayerful attention of every believer, and of every minister and candidate for the sacred office. Action, to be truly moral, religious, and acceptable to God, must be deliberate and self-reflective, and conformed to right principles and intentions. For the intellectual, moral, and spiritual benefit of any of the above designated classes, under whose eye these pages may fall, I will now state some of those early formed and sacred principles and maxims to which my subsequent life has been most carefully and conscientiously conformed.
Early formed Life Principles.
I. As a preacher of the everlasting Gospel, I deliberately and prayerfully fixed upon this as the single and changeless aim and intent of my life, in the selection of subjects to be treated of, and in the preparation and delivery of every discourse which I should ever utter under any circumstances whatever, namely, the highest possible moral and spiritual benefit of my hearers.
Another element of the purpose formed was this, that my discourses, as far as practicable, should have a fixed adaptation to insure the repentance of the impenitent, the salvation of the self-deceived professor, by revealing to his consciousness his moral and spiritual state, as it was, and the edification of the true believer. I set it down distinctly and deliberately in my mind, that the preparation or delivery of a single discourse with a controlling reference to applause, popular favour, or gaining a place, involved awful criminality, and the greatest peril to my immortal interests. Such was my deliberately formed principle of action; and my conscience acquits me of ever having, in a single case, knowingly departed from that sacred principle. This was my purpose, to throw all the energies of my being into the preparation and delivery of every discourse for the ends referred to, and that whether my congregation should be great or small. If—I deliberately, in the secret of my soul, said—public favour and advancement should accrue, while I should act in absolute subordination to such a principle and motive, the award would be received with thankfulness; if disfavour and diminution should accrue, I would look for my reward from the arbitrament of another tribunal, where every man will be awarded according to his deeds.
2. The question, "What shall be my field of labour?" the question whether my church and parish shall be large, wealthy, and influential, or small, poor, and not highly esteemed, often occupies ministerial thought. My own deliberately determined principle was this: to leave it wholly to Providence to determine my field of labour, and to be content with that allotted to me. In whatever field I might at any time be located, whether that field were great or small, influential or uninfluential, I would put forth my best possible energies to render that place "holy ground," "a garden of the Lord," upon which God and heaven should delight to look. Acting, with singleness of purpose, upon this sacred principle, I could, with perfect quietness and assurance, leave the present and the future to Providence.
3. With the same deliberation and definiteness were my principles of judgment and action thus early determined in respect to all questions of doctrine, Church order, and measures; and with regard to all questions of human rights and public weal; questions which might arise outside of my immediate charge. The principle settled upon was this: Every such question should be determined, not at all with reference to what is popular, or to what is approved within the circle of my sect or party in Church or State, but with a simple reference to what is true, right, and just in itself, and to what the permanent interests of the Church and the public demand. By a steady and inflexible adherence to such a principle, I should not, in all probability, as I clearly saw, be well adjusted to popular favour. I should, however, with perfect certainty, assure that upon which I placed an infinitely higher estimate, the full approval of my own conscience, and the smile of God. Acting upon such a principle insures ineffable mental freedom. There is no jar in the action of the interior faculties, no breaking of the internal machinery. It may be well to stop here for a few moments, and consider some of the—
Fruits of a Ministry Conducted upon such Principles.
I. While the churches to which I ministered shared, without exception, very largely in the general revivals which prevailed from time to time, and while we had more frequent revivals than the churches around us, there was ever a constant ingathering of souls under the ordinary ministrations of the word. Our communion seasons occurred once in two months. It would be a quite noticeable fact if any such occasion should pass, and no additions be made of converts from the world. Not a few of the most important and influential converts were gathered in when no revivals existed anywhere around. I give two facts in illustration, facts which occurred during my pastorate in Cincinnati. A lady in the city joined my church by letter. Her husband was a talented and educated man, but an avowed and decided infidel. One Sabbath evening in Midsummer, he was induced, in company with his wife, and a gentleman and his wife, who had taken tea at his house, to attend the services at our place of meeting; special revival influences nowhere, at the time, existing in the city. In listening to one of my ordinary discourses, the veil was taken away from the heart of the unbeliever. Soon after he became a decided convert, united with the people of God, and to the day of his death was a marked "epistle of Christ, known and read of all men" in that city. All Cincinnati was moved when they heard of Dr. Peck's death, which occurred by accident on a railroad.
At one time, when I was in attendance, as fraternal delegate from the General Association of Michigan, at the annual meeting of that of Ohio, the fraternal delegate from the Association of Indiana, in presenting his greetings, made the following personal statements in regard to himself: "When a thoughtless and impenitent young man, I had occasion to visit and spend a night in Cincinnati. In the evening, as I was walking out sight-seeing, I observed a light, and a gathering of people, in a hall near the street where I was passing. I felt an almost irresistible influence impelling me to go in and witness the exercises. I did so. I found myself a listener to the weekly lecture of the pastor of the church and congregation worshipping in the place. As I listened to the discourse, my character and condition as a sinner, and the way of life through Christ, were made impressively plain to my mind. I then and there yielded to God my heart, and left the place a new creature in Christ Jesus. To that one discourse I owe, instrumentally, my salvation, and place in the ministry of reconciliation." Then, turning to me, he added, "I think I see before me the father in Christ who delivered that discourse."
I have ever held, such also has been my experience, and such, as I read, are the express teachings of inspiration, that the Gospel may be, and should be, so preached that everywhere there shall be a constant current from the world into the Kingdom of God. "If they had stood in My counsel, and had caused My people to hear My words, then they should have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings." "Is not My word as a fire? saith the Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?" For myself I never occupied the post of pastor over any church and congregation, for the space of three years, without the membership of that church being nearly or quite doubled. For about the period designated, I occupied the place of pastor of the then Sixth Presbyterian, now the Vine Street Congregational, church in Cincinnati, Ohio. I commenced labours there August 29th, 1831, and resigned May 1st, 1835. When I assumed the work of pastor, the members of the church, who lived in the city and worshipped with us, numbered sixteen. To every one of these I was an entire stranger, having never been in the State of Ohio, until I took my journey to that city. During all these years we worshipped in a hall, and a very plain one it was. Yet, during all this period, there was a constant ingathering of souls. In the year 1834, according to the Church Manual just received, "seventy-two were added on profession." Near the close of the preceding year, between thirty and forty had been thus received, upwards of one hundred being added during a period of about eight months. At this period, there were no revivals of any special account in any of the churches around us. The following fact will demonstrate the character of these converts, and of this church generally. When the membership numbered one hundred, not only were my salary and all other necessary expenses promptly paid, but, as officially reported to Presbytery, the contributions of this "little flock" to the various benevolent societies averaged upwards of twelve dollars per member. Nor has this church yet lost its primal character. The Manual referred to contains the following extract from a discourse delivered by its then pastor, Rev. C. B. Boynton, D.D., January 7th, 1877: "After so many years of varied experiences, here stands Vine Street Church today, not weaker, but stronger; not despised, but respected for her firm defence of the right; stronger than ever, encumbered with no debt, and ready, if baptised with the Holy Ghost, for still nobler work."
Efficacy of Prayer and Pastoral Care.
The second year of my pastorate in Cincinnati was the first era of cholera in the United States. In less than one year and a half, out of a population of about forty thousand, we buried upwards of two thousand five hundred of our citizens, who had died from this one disorder. One of our chief employments was tending the sick, and "burying our dead out of our sight." No pestilence, I believe, ever inspired such terror, as the report of it came from the old countries, as this did; and during the first months of its prevalence more probably died from terror than from the immediate effects of the disease. As the pestilence approached, the churches of the city held a day of fasting and prayer. My own people, in addition to this, held a special day, on our own account. For myself, I took the greatest pains to inform myself of the indications of the approach of the disorder, of the counteracting measures to be adopted, and the remedies to be applied. In all these matters I fully instructed my people, urging them to a prompt and full preparation for whatever might occur, and to a peaceful committal of their mortal and immortal interests to the Divine care and keeping. I also visited, conversed, and prayed with, every family of my church and congregation, giving them such instructions and admonitions as each case seemed to require; urging particularly the promptest action the moment the first indications of the presence of the visitation should appear. The result was, that but one individual in my church and congregation was known to have died from that visitation. This individual was a man somewhat advanced in years, and was believed, by his friends, to have been in a state of incipient derangement. He openly ridiculed all that was done to prepare for the event, recklessly disregarded all counsels and admonitions, and, when the disease was upon him, obstinately refused to have a physician sent for, until a few hours before his death. Had this man heeded advice, it is probable that not a single death would have occurred in that church or congregation from that pestilence; although its earliest victims were almost exclusively members of churches, of wealthy families, and individuals of temperate habits. For a time, it was the open boast of the wicked and profane, that the pestilence confined its ravages to the classes named, and passed by the intemperate, the vicious, criminal, and poor. When it descended to these classes, however, it "swept them away, as with a flood."
A Remarkable Providence.
One event connected with this visitation I will here record. In mid winter, it being severely cold at the time, and not a case of cholera having occurred in the city for months previous, as I went out one morning, I noticed a strange stillness in all directions, and a deep seriousness upon every countenance I met with. Stepping into a book-store owned by two of my elders, I inquired the cause of such appearances. "Have you not heard of what has occurred during the night?" "No." "Why, the cholera is in all parts of the city. Numbers are dead already, and the sick and dying are all around us." During that night, after most of the people had retired to their beds, the visitation came. Many awoke to find themselves either dying, or under the incipient power of the destroyer. Of those who then fell sick, not a few died. But after the rising of that morning's sun, no new attack of the disease was known to have occurred. Twenty or thirty years after this, that ever memorable night was referred to in one of the Cincinnati dailies. No visitation of Providence I ever knew rendered the minds of the people so susceptible to religious impressions as this.
An Illustrative Incident.
I have referred to a life principle, in conformity to which I had determined to put forth my best possible efforts in any field where, for any period, my lot might be cast. In my early ministerial labours, I had commenced work in the city of Rochester, with the expectation of organising a new church there. Just as the organisation was being effected, I was suddenly stricken down by an attack of inflammatory rheumatism in both knees and ankles and my left wrist. Soon my knees became so stiff that my limbs could not be straightened out. In this state, with my flesh wasted to an almost skeleton condition, I was conveyed to my father's residence where my youth had been spent. I found the church and congregation there in a perfectly dilapidated condition, a most calamitous pastorate having just terminated. The dissolution of the church and society, and the disposal of their house of worship to another denomination, were talked of. Emaciated and almost helpless as I was, I raised the question, "What can I do to repair these desolations?" I proposed that the people should convey me in a chair, at the time of the Sabbath services, to their house of worship, which was near my father's residence, and there listen to me, whilst, thus seated, I should speak to them, as I was able, the "words of this life." For about three months I thus continued to serve them; and when I was able to commence labours as pastor elect of the Congregational Church in Pittsford, near Rochester, I left Orangeville, the place above referred to, with a new and faithful pastor elect upon the ground, and, what was of infinitely more importance, with a gracious revival of religion in actual progress, a revival which resulted in gathering into that church almost the entire society. For the amount of the population, that was one of the most powerful revivals known in the United States. Among the converts was my aged father. He had professed religion from my childhood, but was manifestly a total stranger to the grace of God. Becoming fully aware of this, at the time of my conversion, I never, for some twelve years subsequent, prayed in secret without distinctly remembering that father. Thus this great affliction became one of the most fruitful periods of my life. If we will but have grace to be always ready to do the work given us to do, God will never err in selecting our field of labour.
Issues Outside of the Circle of Pastoral Duty.
The principles of thought and action which I early adopted, and to which I have before referred, very soon after my entrance upon public life, brought me in contact with great issues of denominational, church, national, and world interest; a contact which, of necessity, rendered me, with a disposition which naturally shrank from such collisions, "a man of war from my youth." I had a nature so delicate that I would never stand by and witness the dying agonies of a beheaded chicken or slaughtered animal, or witness an act of slaughter, if I could avoid it. Equally reluctant was I to wound the feelings of any human being. I was naturally as selfish and full of sin as any other person. My temperament was, also, very ardent, and as irascible as it was tender and delicate, and so impulsive that I could not see error without exposing it, or apprehend a truth without manifesting it. No man, as it seems to me, was ever possessed of a nature more strangely self-contradictory and unmanageable. With such a conglomeration of contradictory dispositions and temperaments, I was thus early, and without my choice, drifted into the very centre of the great issues and collisions of those agitated times. When, for example, at the age of thirty-five years, I received my appointment as President of Oberlin College, I found myself, with no seeking of my own, at the head of an institution which, as I well knew, would attract universal attention, and which had more points of open and aggressive contact with an old-established and embittered church, public, and national sentiment, than ever before existed. The principle of the joint education of the sexes in colleges and universities was a most offensive innovation, never before heard of. Permit me here to say that did I know, what I devoutly hope will never be, that a monument was to be erected to my memory, and were I requested to furnish for it an epitaph, this would be one of its prominent items, that I was the first man, in the history of the race, who conducted woman, in connection with members of the other sex, through a full course of liberal education, and conferred upon her the high degrees which had hitherto been considered the exclusive prerogative of men.
But the great offence of the College was, that, at such a time, it should set its doors wide open, and that publicly, for the education of mind, rational mind, and that irrespective of all conditions and relations of sex, race, or colour; that the Institution should thus unveil itself before the world, as the equal and impartial friend of human nature. Such a position was considered an open insult to the fixed usages of the churches, of all our great institutions of learning, and of the changeless sentiment of the nation.
But when the startling fact stood out in broad relief before the Church and the world, that brother Finney and myself had adopted views of faith and doctrine at variance with the long settled and cherished belief of the churches and denominations to which we had formerly been affiliated, and when it became evident that our views would be received by multitudes in all the churches, then we knew what the apostle meant when he said, "We are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscourings of all things." In all directions we were openly disfellowshipped, and pulpits which had been wide open to us were almost everywhere, Methodist ones excepted, closed and barred against us.
Take a single example, illustrative of the state of feeling that then existed. A council of ministers and delegates from surrounding churches met in South Boston to ordain and instal the younger Dr. Patton as pastor of a church there. During the examination of the candidate, he was asked this question: "If you are installed over this church, will you allow President Mahan or Professor Finney to preach in your pulpit?" On receiving an affirmative answer, the Council spent half a day in discussing whether they should proceed further with the exercises. Some member, in addressing the Council, used the words, "The brethren at Oberlin." "They are not brethren; they are aliens," was the prompt response; a response with which almost the entire body openly sympathised. It was under such circumstances that brother Finney and myself deliberately set about the work of convincing the ministry and churches that they had erred, and that God had taught us the truth, on a subject of most vital interest to all believers.
When passing through all these "trials of faith," and when my name was everywhere being cast out as evil, this conviction was ever distinctly before my mind; "I must never suffer my temper to be ruffled. When reviled, I must bless: when persecuted, I must suffer it: when defamed, I must entreat: in whatever state I am, I must learn therewith to be content." Before I knew my Saviour, and the power of His grace, as I have known them for the past forty-seven years, I found conformity to such convictions practically impossible. Christ's yoke and burden pressed heavily upon my spirits, and with great mental suffering I "bore the cross after Jesus." Since the good hour in which God made known to me "what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory," Christ's "yoke has indeed been easy, and His burden light," and His cross has pressed upon the soul as "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Then, the cry of my soul was, "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me?" Since then, I have fully known what Paul meant, when he said, "In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that hath loved us;" and when he said again, as Alford translates his words, "Most gladly therefore will I rather boast, in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Wherefore I am well content in infirmities, in insults, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake; for, when I am weak, then am I strong." "I have strength for all things in Him who giveth me power."
Pastoral Experiences of such Conflicts in the city of Cincinnati
No important city in any free State had so direct and immediate connection with, and dependence for its prosperity upon, the Southern States as Cincinnati. No such city, consequently, was so deeply imbued with the Southern sentiment. For this reason, no pastor could be in worse relations to the popular sentiment around him, than one holding the anti-slavery doctrine; and I was so circumstanced that my views upon the subject could not be hid. Immediately after coming to the city, I was elected a trustee, and member of the Prudential Committee, of Lane Seminary. After Dr. Beecher received his appointment as Professor of Theology in the Institution, I was appointed to draft a letter to be addressed in the name of the trustees to the Doctor's church in Boston, to induce that church to consent to his acceptance of the appointment referred to. I accordingly drafted the letter which appears in his Memoir. As a large portion of the students who joined the Seminary after Dr. Beecher and Professor Stowe became connected with it, came from the State of New York, and knew me personally, or by reputation, most of them connected themselves with my congregation, took charge of our singing, and became teachers in our Sabbath school. These facts rendered my connection with the Institution quite conspicuous. As the anti-slavery agitation was now stirring the nation from centre to circumference, I felt it a duty to prepare my own church for the crisis which, without our seeking, was upon us. I accordingly prepared, with great care, a discourse in which I candidly expressed my own views, and urged upon all perfect candour in examining the subject, and Christian charity where difference of opinion might be arrived at. This was the only discourse I delivered upon the subject during my pastorate there, and I was not in the habit of alluding to it in my ordinary discourses. The result was, that that discourse instantly became the subject of public talk and embittered discussion throughout the city. Immediately it was noised abroad all through the city that I had openly avowed and defended the doctrine of amalgamation, though I had not alluded to the subject. As an imputed advocate of the intermarriage of the whites and blacks, I myself together with my family, was practically disfellowshipped, and treated as an alien and outcast by the churches, and mass of the community, outside of my own church and congregation. As our two young children, for example, were, one day in summer, amusing themselves on the sidewalk in front of our house, they were discovered by a knot of children on the opposite side of the street, and the cry was raised, "See those children. Their father is an abolitionist. Stone them." A violent stoning instantly commenced; our little daughters fled for their lives, one of them suffering a heavy fall upon the pavement.
Prior to Dr. Beecher's coming to Cincinnati, I had become quite endeared to the church and congregation of which, at the time of his connection with the Seminary, he became pastor. During the first period of cholera they were without a pastor, and as there was very little sickness among my own people, I practically took the pastoral charge of them, tending their sick and officiating at their funerals, until, from excessive fatigue, I was myself stricken down by the pestilence. For this and other reasons, special pains were taken by that people to show their respect for myself and my wife. Whenever she entered that church, as soon as she was seen in the "broad aisle," at least half a dozen doors would be thrown open to welcome her. After Dr. Beecher entered upon his pastorate, and my position became known, Mrs. Mahan, being desirous to hear him, visited that church. She entered it with no apprehension that she would not be as welcome as ever before. When she started down the "broad aisle," however, not an individual recognised her, not a door was opened to receive her. Thus she walked down until she entered a vacant slip, the second from the pulpit, a slip owned by a special friend of ours, and who had invited us to occupy it whenever we had occasion to attend that church. At the close of the services not an individual even recognised her. The brave woman returned a more confirmed friend of the slave than ever before, and exhorted her husband, to stand fast by his principles. Those, as the reader will perceive, risked not a little who opened their mouths for the dumb at that time. Multitudes of ministers of all denominations, who were silent upon the subject in those perilous times, became bold defenders of the rights of the coloured man as soon as the anti-slavery sentiment became popular.
At this time, an event occurred which startled, not only the community, but the whole nation. In the different departments of Lane Seminary were collected upwards of one hundred young men. Some of these, such as Mr. Theodore D. Weld, had already a national reputation. Two of them were sons of Dr. Allen, a distinguished Presbyterian minister in Alabama. Another., Mr. J. A. Thome, was from a very distinguished family in Kentucky. Mr. Stanton, from the State of New York, and others from other States, were widely known as young men of great promise. Dr. Beecher, when at the east, publicly stated, as reported in the papers, that among those students was an embodiment of a greater amount of piety and talent than he had ever known to be collected in any other institution. These students requested and obtained leave of the Faculty to hold, in their Literary Society, a full and free discussion of the subject of slavery. A discussion ensued, occupying the evenings of five or six weeks, and one of the very ablest character. The result was, that the mass of the students, including all from the South, embraced the anti-slavery sentiment, and organised a society for the purpose of acting upon the national mind. Great excitement followed, as the facts were spread before the nation through the papers. Cincinnati had never been so convulsed before. The most influential citizens openly talked of sending up an organised mob to demolish the buildings, and drive the Faculty and students from the ground. The Faculty took the alarm, called the students together, assured them that they were right in the conclusions which they had reached, and that the time would come when decisive action would be demanded; but that they were now too far in advance of public sentiment to act without infinite peril to higher interests. "I have made it a fixed maxim of my life," said the venerable President, "never to take a public stand in favour of any new subject that is likely to excite controversy, until I was fully assured that public sentiment was so far advanced in its favour as to sustain me in its advocacy. I earnestly commend my example to your imitation in the perilous circumstances in which we are now placed." The students were accordingly entreated to allay public excitement by dissolving their society, and suspending all present action upon the agitating subject. All such considerations failed to convince the young men, and to induce them to undo what they had done, and that from the most solemn convictions of right and duty.
Before any violent measures were matured in the city, all visible causes for present action were removed by the occurrence of the three months' summer vacation, the dispersion of the students, and the departure of all the Faculty but one to attend the eastern anniversaries. At the same time, I availed myself of a pastoral vacation to visit my parents and friends in the State of New York. I had not attended one of the anit-slavery discussions in the Seminary; my known relations to the students, however, as well as my known views upon the subject, directly identified me with all their doings, and greatly intensified the popular prejudice against me. Hence, as soon as my absence was known, it was everywhere reported that I had gone to obtain a new field of labour, and would never dare to show my face in the city again. Having completed my visit, however, I did return, and that with no intention of abandoning a church and congregation who had so bravely stood by me amid all reproaches, and encircling perils. While my name, let me add here, was a reproach with masses around, my own people were contemplating adding two hundred dollars to my salary. Immediately on my return I found myself in a circle of fire of which I had no previous knowledge or expectation. Arriving at home about noon, I found upon my table a notice to attend, at a specified hour of the same day, a meeting of the Prudential Committee of the Seminary. The business of the meeting was action upon a new code of laws, prepared by a sub-committee appointed at a previous meeting. By one item of this code the Anti-Slavery Society in the Seminary was dissolved, and all future organisations of the kind were prohibited. Another item forbade all discussions of the subject of slavery in any of the literary, religious, or social gatherings of the pupils, or at their public tables at meal-times. The last item absolutely prohibited private conversation among the students upon the subject. When the motion to adopt this Draconian code was about to be put, I interposed the objection, that we, as a Prudential Committee, were wholly an executive, and not at all a lawmaking power, that the trustees were the only body that had power to make laws for the Seminary, and that we, as a committee, were acting illegally in attempting to exercise such functions. Judge Wright, President of the Board of Trustees and Chairman of the Prudential Committee, and also of the sub-committee which had prepared the code, responded at once to the correctness of my views, saying that they had misapprehended the proper functions of their body. Recommitting the code for future revision, the Committee adjourned with a resolution to call together the trustees at the earliest period practicable, ten or twelve days' previous notice being required for an extra session. I immediately wrote to Dr. Beecher, informing him of what was being done, and of the peril of the Seminary, and urged him and Professor Stowe to hasten home and prevent the dismantling of the Institution, an event which, I assured him, would occur, should the measures under consideration be carried out. I wrote under the distinct impression that both of these individuals would reprobate the passage of the proposed code of laws. This I inferred from their known antecedents, both of them having openly avowed the absolute right of all students, in all our Institutions, freely to discuss all such subjects among themselves. Just before leaving for the east, I heard Professor Stowe say with great earnestness, in reply to a suggestion from a leading citizen that the trustees might, by the passage of a new code, suppress the existing anti-slavery agitation in the Seminary, "If a law suppressing free discussion in this Institution shall be passed, I will not be connected with it for five minutes." The views of these individuals had, as will appear, essentially changed upon this subject, through consultation with leading minds at the east. Both remained away until after the trustees had acted, Dr. Beecher stopping at Columbus, and from thence turning north and spending about two weeks in the town of Granville.
When the trustees met, the code previously prepared was reported for their action. As now reported, however, two changes in the original had been made. The item prohibiting private conversation among the students on the subject of slavery was omitted, and a new one added of an unheard of character. It was this: "The Prudential Committee shall have power to turn out any student from the Seminary, when they shall deem it necessary so to do." When this new item was read, a gleam of hope sprang up in my mind in regard to final results. The law was so monstrously unjust, that, as I saw, it would reveal to the public the animus of the whole procedure, and turn sympathy from the trustees towards the students. Wishing to have it pass, if the code itself should be adopted, I felt bound to protest against it. When it came up to be acted upon, I accordingly said, that "If I should hear that such a law had been adopted in Turkey for the government of one of their institutions, I should regard the fact with utter surprise, it being so monstrously unjust to put such despotic power into the hands of any irresponsible body of men over the dearest rights and interests of students." That item, with all the others, was adopted, however; all the trustees assenting, with the exception of myself and two of my elders, William Holyoke and John Melindy, two as noble specimens of sanctified humanity as I have ever met with. All that we could say was said to dissuade our associates from the suicidal measure, which, we clearly saw, they were about to perpetrate. One reason urged for immediate and prompt action was a fact stated by one of the influential members. "A meeting," he said, "had just been held, at the east, by the Presidents and leading Professors of our most influential Colleges and Theological Seminaries in New England, in the middle and western States, and it had been unanimously agreed that the times imperiously demanded that all anti-slavery agitation should be suppressed by laws such as we were then enacting, and it was agreed that Lane Seminary should lead off, and the others would promptly follow her example." Several such institutions were designated by name. When I heard those statements, these words instantly passed through my mind: "The first institution that passes such laws must be crushed. That will end the movement." This prediction was verified by the dismantlement of Lane Seminary, a dismantlement which immediately followed the passage of these laws. Not an institution in a northern State, a single eastern academy excepted, redeemed its pledge to follow the example of this one Seminary. These two Institutions, the former being as promptly dismantled as the latter, were thus "left alone in their glory."
When the code was adopted throughout, my own vote and that of my two elders being recorded against every item of the same, a motion was made that, to allay public excitement, the said code should be immediately published in all the daily papers of the city. While this motion was pending, the President of the Board remarked, that they had better not publish with the rest that item by which power was given to the Prudential Committee to "turn out of the Seminary any student, when they should deem it necessary so to do." "That item," he remarked, "the public have no concern with whatever. It belongs exclusively to the Committee for the regulation of their action." To this I replied, that the public, students especially who were, or might desire to become, connected with the Seminary, had an absolute right to know beforehand and fully all the laws and powers to which such members are subject, and that it would be dishonourable and dishonest to withhold such information. The motion to publish the code in its entireness was accordingly passed. As we were about to disperse, the President of the Board introduced again the subject of the item under consideration, and almost beseechingly urged that it should be withheld from the public. I replied, that the item could not be concealed; that if the trustees should withhold it, it would go forth by itself as something so monstrously unjust, that those who adopted it were ashamed to have the public know what they had done. The Pastor of the Third Presbyterian church then arose, and remarked, that he had from the beginning approved of this law as right in itself and as, in existing circumstances, wholly expedient. Nor did he perceive anything intrinsic in the item, to require it to be withheld from the public. "There is one consideration, however," he said, "which makes me fear to have this item go out as a part of the code which we have adopted. I perceive that that man," pointing to myself; "is strongly desirous to have it published. That makes me apprehensive that he sees something in this item that we do not. I shall therefore vote against its publication." Perceiving that such considerations were about to prevail, as a final resort, I turned to Mr. Melindy, who sat next me, and said, "Say to Mr. N.," a very influential and fiery trustee who sat near his side, "You dare not publish that law." No sooner had Mr. M. done as requested, than Mr. N. got upon his feet. "We are told," he exclaimed, "that we dare not publish this law. We will let them know that we not only dare to publish it, but to execute it too. There are a number of those students who will never be permitted to join the Seminary again." "That will do," I said to myself; and the code, in its entireness, went before the public.
I have but one motive in recording these personal reminiscences—to show how it is, that when even wise men are about to do some bad thing, they generally adopt some rash measures which defeat their own ends. The code had not been two days before the public, when this one item became the subject of general conversation, and of the strongest possible reprobation. Every student in the Seminary, it was truly said, whatever his virtues or reputation might be, and however loyal to the rules and regulations of the institution, was placed in absolute subjection to the prejudice and arbitrary disposal of a body of irresponsible inquisitors. Public sympathy was immediately turned away from the trustees, and set so strongly towards the students, that all symptoms of mob violence disappeared. As soon as Dr. Beecher returned, and learned the state of the public mind, he rushed to the leading members of the Board of Trustees, and exclaimed, "Gentlemen, what have you done? Professor Stowe and myself fully approve of the entire code of laws you have passed, with the exception of this most offensive item, which has rendered all that you have done a public scandal." The deed was done, and was before the public, and the effect could not be remedied. As soon as the Board met, at their annual meeting, at the commencement of the fall term of the Seminary, this law was promptly erased from the Statute Book. "That law," said the President of the Board to me, "is a mystery to me. I drafted it myself. Why I did not apprehend its character, I cannot comprehend."
The students, with others who had come to join the institution, were promptly on the ground at the opening of the term. They immediately assembled in the chapel, and sent a committee of their number to the Faculty, with a request that some of the latter should be deputed to read and expound to the students the new code of laws which had just been enacted. This was done. Then another committee was sent to inquire whether the students would be permitted to discuss among themselves the character of the new code. To this inquiry a negative answer was promptly returned, with the statement that there was only one question for the students to decide, each for himself; and that was, whether he would, or would not, acquiesce in those laws, and act loyally under them. Another committee was sent with the inquiry whether the students would be permitted to discuss among themselves the propriety of their continuing in the Seminary while subject to such laws. To this inquiry an answer identical with the former was promptly returned. One of the leading students now arose, and remarked, that one privilege remained to them, namely, to say, by rising to their feet, whether they would, or would not, continue members of the Institution under existing circumstances. For himself; he would say, that the most solemn convictions of duty to his God, his conscience, his country, and the race, constrained him to say, that he could not longer continue a student of Lane Seminary. He should, therefore, ask of the Faculty an honourable dismission; and he would request every student present, who was of the same mind and determination with himself; to signify the same by rising and standing upon his feet. The mass of the students promptly arose; a very small minority, among whom was a son of Dr. Beecher, looking on with consternation. Each of the seceding students asked and received of the Faculty an honourable dismission, and "went out, not knowing whither he went."
A very wealthy individual, Mr. Ludlow, brother-in-law of the late Chief Justice Chace, promptly vacated his ample residence, buildings, and grounds, and gave them up for the occupancy of these students as long as occasion should require. Arthur Tappan, Esq., of New York, that world-renowned philanthropist, immediately sent on five thousand dollars to sustain these students in their new apartments. We thus had, in an incredibly short time, two Institutions of the same character in the vicinity of Cincinnati: one at Cummingsville, full of students, but without endowments, and without a Faculty; and one at Walnut Hills, with large but empty buildings, an ample endowment, an able Faculty, but practically without students, the number present being not sufficient to give the Institution "a name to live."
The intensest indignation of the special friends of the Seminary now centred upon myself. I was everywhere charged with being the cause of the secession of the students and of the dismantling of the Institution. The leading members of my church were visited by the general agent of the Seminary and others, and urged, by every consideration they could present, to secure my prompt dismissal from my pastorate. That "little flock," of "blessed memory," could not see matters as their advisers did. As a Spartan phalanx, they encircled, sustained, and encouraged their pastor, and were about, as I have stated, to add two hundred dollars to his salary, when he was called to another sphere of action. As far as the secession under consideration is concerned, I am bound to affirm, as I stated to all who charged me with being its cause, that I had nothing whatever to do with it, the simple fact excepted, that the students knew that I approved of their anti-slavery views and measures. They were all absent from the city and Seminary when the laws which occasioned their secession were enacted. On their return, at the commencement of the new term, they went straight to the Institution, not one of them taking any advice, direct or indirect, from me; and they remained there until they went out with dismissions in their pockets. They avoided, as I suppose, communication with me for the prudent and kind purpose of not involving me at all in their doings.
These facts, however, and the assurances to the same effect which the authorities and friends of the Seminary received, did not in the least shield me from the charges under consideration. No pastor, outside of his own church and congregation, ever stood in a more insulated and unenviable position than I did at that time. I was the only pastor, of any denomination, in the city, or for thirty or more miles round, who stood upon the platform; and no man could occupy such a position in circumstances which rendered him the object of more general and embittered reprobation. This position, let me add, was taken deliberately, with a full calculation of the probable consequences. I had not sought the issues which had been forced upon me. Under such circumstances, I had but one law of judgment and action, namely, the behests of conscience and the will of God. If I followed this law, I saw distinctly before me the bitter disfavour of the public, the loss of Christian fellowship with those with whom I had been in most intimate association, and utter separation from the good-will of all the churches of all denominations around me. This was not all. I saw, in almost certain prospect, the loss of my place as pastor, a future exclusion from leading churches everywhere on account of the pro-slavery spirit with which they were pervaded, and the spending of the future of life among an obscure people in some retired locality. It was in view of such considerations that, when at the East, I refused, though urged to do so, to present myself as a candidate for the then vacant pastorate of the First Presbyterian Church of Buffalo, N.Y. Such a position I did not, however, assume, without pain and intense mental suffering. I had not then "learned" the Divine lesson, "in whatever state I was, therewith to be content," and especially to "take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake." But, blessed be His name, I had grace to choose most deliberately to suffer pain, to incur prospective poverty and ignominy, rather than violate my conscience by refusing to "open my mouth for the dumb."
The Results.
Ministers and others who shape their course to popular favour, on the one hand, and with a single eye to the behests of conscience and the will of God, on the other, have, both classes, their respective rewards; the one class receiving the favour of man, and the other the smile of God. All the brethren who called upon me—and many did call—to expostulate with me for the course I was pursuing, admitted fully and distinctly the absolute validity of my principles, and the rectitude of my motives, in the course I was pursuing. But they remarked, "How obviously unwise and inexpedient it is for an individual in your position to sacrifice popular favour, and jeopardise all your influence in respect to all the great interests of the age, in the defence of one single principle!" "We have not, any of us," said the editor of our religious journal, on one such occasion,—"not one of us has a doubt about the truth of the doctrine you hold, or of the rectitude of your motives; but why will you jeopardise your influence on all other subjects in the defence of that one doctrine? I, for example, as an editor, have influence in the Temperance cause, in the Tract cause, in the Education cause, and in the Missionary cause, Home and Foreign. Shall I jeopardise my influence in all these causes in defence of this one?" My reply was, that I had "not so learned Christ." The cause of human nature, in the person of the slave, was, not by our choice, but in the unavoidable providence of God, forced upon us, and we were necessitated to show our hands on the one side or the other. Under such circumstances, I see but one alternative—to violate my conscience and the will of God, or to "dare to be true," "dare to be just," and "dare to do right," and leave consequences with "the Judge of all." Yet never before, when any important question was pending, was my advice more eagerly sought, or had greater influence, than at this time, although, when I was among my brethren, they stood away from me as if I had leprosy.
A special meeting of the Cincinnati Presbytery, for example, was called to meet at Reading, some ten or twelve miles north of the city, to try the pastor of that church, one of our most respected members, under charges precisely similar to those which Dr. Talmage was recently required to meet before the Brooklyn Presbytery. The case was a very perplexing one, the complainants being several of the most influential members of that church. Thinking that my presence would be a trial to my brethren, I determined to remain at home, and did so. As soon as it was found that I was not coming, a special messenger and conveyance were sent to the city to convey me to the meeting.
I shall leave the motive with my God, in relating a fact which illustrates the difference between a standing in the smiles of public favour, and a right adjustment to the public conscience. When two young attornies, both members of Dr. Beecher's congregation, were together one day, one said to the other, "There is something very singular about the Pastor of this Sixth Presbyterian Church. He is, outside of his own church and people, the most unpopular man I ever knew. His name is never spoken but with reprobation. Yet, if anybody, even one of his worst defamers, desires to obtain light on a question of duty or truth, or to know what he shall do to be saved, he will pass right by all these popular preachers, and go directly to this one man. You know well that this is the case. How do you account for such a strange fact?" "The reason is this," was the reply. "Whatever people may say about him, no one of them entertains a doubt that he is an honest man." The individual that gave this answer, afterwards attended one of my weekly lectures, tarried at the close to inquire of me, "What he should do to inherit eternal life," and left the place with the assurance of peace with God. He subsequently left his profession, and died while a student of Theology in the Seminary.
Such facts clearly elucidate the secret of power in the pulpit, of power for the end for which the ministry was ordained—to "persuade men." Never, in my ministerial life, had I preached the Gospel with greater freedom and power than I did during all this stormy period. Nor did revival influences cease, but we had, as before, constant accessions from the world. At this time the Methodist Protestants held a camp meeting upon an old camp ground some twenty-five or thirty miles above the city. So perfectly accustomed had the people become to their mode of presenting truth, that the ministers said clearly that they could make no impression upon their audiences. They accordingly sent for me. When I arose to speak, I seemed to be girded with great and blessed energies. As the result of the first discourse, a revival broke out, which is spoken of to this day by elderly believers in the city and in all that region. A scene which was presented as I retired into that forest for secret prayer is described in Out of Darkness into Light, and will not be repeated here.
The reverse was true of the ministry around me. Revival influences died out of their churches, and were absent for years subsequent. I solemnly believe that the cause of this, and of the subsequent flooding of that city by spiritualism and infidelity, was the manifest fact that during that period which "tried men's souls," the ministry, and with them the churches, adjusted themselves to popular favour rather than to the public conscience. Some sixteen years after I left, on revisiting the scene of my former labours, I attended a special ministemial meeting called to consider the state of religion in the city. In this meeting the pastor of the leading Episcopal Church stated that the mass of the people, the young especially, were under the influence of the two forms of error just mentioned; that, as was well known, upwards of five hundred separate circles met every week in that city to witness these spirit seances, all of which were attended by crowded audiences. Yet, the fear of losing popular favour by meddling, as it was called, with such debasing errors, utterly prevented anything being done to arrest the pestilence. May the time soon come when the fact will be "known and read of all men," that a ministry and a church which do not, by a manifestation of the truth, commend themselves to every man's conscience in the "sight of God," are "as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal." It is an abiding consolation with me, at this time of life, looking as I am directly into eternity, that during my entire official life I have never, in the decision of any question providentially submitted to my election, deviated from the one sacred inquiry, "What is true? What is right? What is duty? What is the will of God? What do the immortal interests of my fellow men demand of me?"
A startling Occurrence.
While matters were progressing as above stated, an event utterly unexpected to us all occurred, an event which startled not only the community around me, but the entire nation. The Rev. J. J. Shipherd, the principal founder of Oberlin College and Community, called at my house, and for several days became a guest in my family. He came under a special commission from the trustees to find a President for their College. As soon as he received his commission and made it a subject of prayer, a strong and almost irrepressible impression came over his mind, that he should at once go south at least as far as Cincinnati. The thought of going in that direction had not before come into his mind, nor had he knowledge of a single fact or reason why he should go in that direction, this one distinct and strong impression excepted. Under that impression he started south and went as far as Columbus. Here he found himself so exhausted on account of the almost intolerable state of the road, and so appalled by the worse prospect between that point and Cincinnati, that he determined to take the National road, and go direct to New York. At the hotel he providentially met the son of the Rev. John Keep, the President of the Oberlin Board of Trustees. This young man, a graduate of an eastern College, had gone down to Cincinnati to join Lane Seminary, but, on account of the state of the Institution, he had left, and was on his way home. When Mr. Shipherd made known to him the object of his mission, young Mr. Keep said, "Go to Cincinnati by all means. The pastor of the Sixth Presbyterian Church there is the man you are inquiring after." This determined Mr. Shipherd. At that time, mid-winter, the mails between the two cities, no other public conveyance then existing, were carried in a large rude box placed upon a two-wheeled cart, which was drawn by four horses. No passengers were taken but such as would consent to sit or lie among those mail-bags. Into that box Mr. Shipherd threw himself, and so came to our city. For some days he said not a word to me or to my wife about his mission, talking freely to us, however, about his College. In my family, at the time, was a daughter of a leading citizen of Oberlin, a young lady who, with some others, was taking lessons from me in mental science. On making known to her his mission, she replied that in that house was the man he was seeking. About the time this conversation was being held, several of the students from Cummingsville called at my house. To them, in strict confidence, he made known the object of his mission. They unanimously and spontaneously advised my appointment. Mr. Shipherd then went to Cummingsville, and held a strictly confidential interview with all those students. They unitedly, no one dissenting, advised my appointment, and further agreed that if Professor Morgan should receive an appointment to a Professorship in the College, they would all go to Oberlin at the opening of the spring term. Mr. Shipherd now returned and laid all the facts before me and my wife; urging that I should not wait for a formal appointment from the trustees, his power being in fact and form plenipotentiary, but should start with him up the river on Monday morning. This was the latter part of the week. The facts were so plain and overpowering, and the call of Providence so manifest, that I did not hesitate. The object now was to get away, without the reason of my absence being, for the present, made known. Of my elders, two, Messrs. Holyoke and Melindy, as fellow trustees, had acted with me through all the "fiery trials" through which I had passed. The other two sympathised with the majority of the trustees. I called together the two brethren designated, and laid before them the facts as above stated, and my determination to accept the appointment tendered me. While they expressed their deepest regret at parting with their pastor, both fully acquiesced in the wisdom of my determination. "If I can but see you," said Brother Melindy, "in a situation where you can turn round and look these men in the face, and say to them, 'Gentlemen, I am not destroyed, as you predicted that I should be,' it will be one of the happiest periods of my life."
On Saturday evening, all the elders met, and I stated to them that very unexpectedly to myself I had occasion to be absent from the city for, at least, four weeks, and requested leave to be thus absent, no reasons whatever being given. After leave was granted, the two brethren who were ignorant of the facts waited for some time in manifest bewilderment, to see if they could not gain some clue to the reasons of the mysterious request which I had presented, and they had granted me. None, however, was obtained. On board the first boat that steamed up the river on Monday, Mr. Shipherd and myself took passage, and I stepped out of the furnace, in the central fires of which I had walked so long. At Ripley, we called upon that renowned hero-friend of the slave, the Rev. John Rankin. He lived upon a very high and steep hill which overlooked the village, and a very wide extent of slave territory on the other side of the river in the State of Kentucky. His house was everywhere known as the refuge for the fugitive slave, and no such fugitive was ever taken from his premises. Having made known to him our mission, he made us a free loan of a pair of horses, on which to ride some thirty miles into the country, to see and consult Mr. Theodore D. Weld. We found him at Hilisboro delivering a course of lectures on slavery. Having laid our plans before him, we proposed that he should accept the Professorship of Theology, he being the choice of all the students at Cummingsville. "No," he replied, "I am not, but Mr. Finney is, the man to fill that Professorship; and Providence has just now prepared him to occupy such a position. He is in a state of too great physical prostra- tion to labour as an Evangelist, or to sustain the responsibilities of a pastor; while teaching theology, for which he is pre-eminently fitted, would be needful rest to him." These considerations fully determined our judgment, and then and there the plan of the Institution was fully matured; namely, I was to be President and Professor of Mental Science; Mr. Finney was to be Professor of Theology; and Professor Morgan Professor of Biblical Literature.
With this plan before us, we hastened on to New York. On our arrival, we, first of all, called together for consultation some twenty to thirty of the special friends of Mr. Finney, he being present at the meeting. Before this body we laid our cause, and fully convinced every one of his friends present that he should accept the position tendered him. He now took the matter into serious consideration. When thus pondering the subject, he asked me one day the question, "What are you doing for the endowment of your College?" "We are doing nothing," was my reply, "nor shall we do anything, until you decide the question whether you will go there, provided the means to sustain the College are secured." After a short consultation, "I will go with you," he said, "on the conditions you have named." We then went to work with a will, and in less than three months from the time when we had left Cincinnati, all the appointments above designated were made, and finally accepted, and upwards of eighty thousand dollars were secured for the endowment of the institution, and a donation of ten thousand dollars from Arthur Tappan, Esq., for incidental expenses.
At the close of my four weeks' vacation, I sent in my resignation as pastor. This was accepted, with a resolution, which was promptly carried out, to continue my salary to the end of the quarter, only four weeks of the time having expired when I left. At the close of our mission east, I returned and removed my family to Oberlin, leaving my blessing with my people, and taking theirs with me. At the opening of the spring term, all my associates were with me on the ground, together with the students from Cummingsville, and the Institution, in all its departments, Theological, College, and Preparatory, was in full operation.
"What hath God wrought!" Had it been the fixed purpose of Providence to take me out of the narrow sphere in which I was before acting, and to place me in one in which I should exert the greatest influence possible to one with my individual endowments, no better place than Oberlin could have been found for me. That Institution was the first in the history of the race to adopt the principle of the co-education of the sexes in all departments of a common and liberal education. It is well known how that principle is now influencing the Colleges and Universities and Literary Institutions throughout Christendom. To be located as the first President of such an Institution, and to be the first individual in the history of the race who carried woman through a course of liberal education, and conferred upon her the honorary degrees hitherto considered as the exclusive prerogative of the male sex, and thus to vindicate for woman a sacred right to all such privileges, was surely to be placed in a sphere of influence beyond all imagined anticipations. When I took the Presidency of that College, another principle equally new, and of still more fundamental importance, was introduced; namely, the education of mind irrespective, not only of sex, but of colour, nationality, or condition. No such Institution had ever existed before, and this stood revealed at a time of all others best adapted to commend its principles to the conscience of the Church and the nation. After that no Institution in any northern State copied the example of Lane Seminary, and in a few years that Institution blotted out its pro-slavery laws, and gave free thought as free a course as it had in any other Institution. Some years after I left, one of its graduates, the Rev. Jonathan Blanchard, one of the most outspoken abolitionists then known, became pastor of the church I had left, and continued so until he was called to the Presidency of Knox College in the State of Illinois.
Then, when Brother Finney and myself avowed the religious views which ever after constituted the burden of our lives, the great revivals in which he had had such a chief instrumentality rendered it perfectly certain that those views would enter as an all-powerful leaven into all churches of all denominations. At no time, in the history of the Church, could those views have been presented in circumstances so favourable to their ultimate general reception.
One other circumstance should not be overlooked in this connection. The number of students in constant attendance during the fifteen years in which I was President of the College, averaged between five and eight hundred. The mass of these, during our winter vacations of three months, "went abroad everywhere," as teachers and lecturers, and exerted a wonderfully powerful influence in spreading our principles and promoting revivals of religion. Think, too, of the influence of our graduates who went forth from us from year to year. The reader will appreciate the remark made to me by the Hon. Wendell Philips, the last time I met that wonderful man. After the close of the war of the rebellion, he delivered, in Adrian, a lecture, in which he laid down most true and noble principles in advance of the existing public sentiment. At the close, I went upon the platform and congratulated him upon his address, thanking him especially for the advanced principles which he had announced. His reply was in these words: "I had rather receive such commendation from you, than from any other man in the world. We all know that you have done more for this cause than any of us." This he said, not of me as a man, but as the representative of the Institution over which I had presided, and over which God, by such wondrous providences, had placed me, taking me so suddenly out of circumstances in which I had long laboured with no other expectation than being "offered on the service and sacrifice of my faith."
CHAPTER X.
PROGRESS IN CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
ACCORDING to the fundamental teachings of the Calvinistic faith, as originally set forth by all its advocates and expounders, each descendant of Adam is held and adjudged, at the bar of God, as "deserving God's wrath and curse, not only in this world, but in that which is to come," for three distinct and separate reasons: the first sin of Adam, imputed to them, or set over to their account, a sin committed thousands of years before thousands of millions of them existed at all; a sinful or sin-inducing nature, a nature in the origination and constitution of which they had no more agency, direct or indirect, than they had had in the sin of Adam, or in the creation of the universe; and actual transgressions which the nature, thus derived and originated, rendered it absolutely impossible that they should not commit. From these three dogmas, the entire system of Christian doctrine, as originally taught in this school, took specific form. I refer to such doctrines as the eternal decrees, eternal and unconditional election and reprobation, atonement, and regeneration. In the Arminian school, these three dogmas, together with the system of doctrine based upon the same, were either utterly denied, or fundamentally modified so as to conform to the doctrines of a general atonement, the free offer of salvation to the entire race, and a free will in man to accept or reject "the grace of God which bringeth salvation," the grace as freely and sincerely offered to every man as to any man.
At the time of my conversion, and long prior to that event, the difficulties intrinsic in the fundamental articles of the Calvinistic faith pressed with crushing weight upon very many thoughtful minds within the circle of its zealous advocates. When the sternest advocate of this faith directly confronted the doctrine that thousands of millions of moral agents are held subject to eternal doom for a single act of a single agent, an act committed thousands of years before they existed at all, he stood appalled and confounded at the undeniable monstrosity of such a dogma. No one could, by any possibility, conceive of the justice of such imputation, any more than he could conceive of the annihilation of space, or of an event without a cause. The only attempt to remove this absurdity was made by President Edwards. He, in fact, denied the representative character of Adam, and the imputation of his sin to his posterity. All mankind, Edwards affirmed, actually existed in Adam at the time of the fall, and actually, by an act of their own wills, each one for himself, concurred in that act of sin, and thus made it his own. Adam did not in that act represent the race; nor was his sin imputed to them. They, on the other hand, by voluntarily joining in that act, "sinned in him, and fell with him, in his first transgression." This explanation was so obviously false in fact that few thinkers concurred in it, and it soon passed out of the sphere of theological thought. We have here the fact common to multitudes of minds in the school of Calvinism, that such a thinker as Edwards could not embrace the dogma of the imputation of Adam's sin to his entire posterity. Hence it was utterly repudiated by multitudes in that school. Subsequently to my conversion, I never for a moment entertained that sentiment.
In the necessary judgment of all reflecting minds, the same difficulties and absurdities were involved in the doctrine of original sin, as set forth in the primal Calvinistic creed; the dogma that all mankind are held as deserving and subject to "God's wrath and curse, not only in this life, but in that which is to come," for a nature derived from Adam, and originated wholly by God Himself, by establishing and sustaining, by His own omnipotence, the laws of natural generation; a nature, in the origination and constitution of which the subject had no knowledge, choice, or agency. The fact of the existence of such a nature was readily admitted by all. That God Himself should thus originate such a nature, and then hold the subject, who had had no agency at all in its production, as exclusively responsible, as subject to eternal doom, or as guilty at all, for its existence,—reflective thought shrank back, with horror and reprobation, from such a dogma. As a consequence, masses of minds, within the circle of the Calvinistic faith, blotted the doctrine from their creed. Quite early, it was deliberately excluded from my articles of faith.
According to the fundamental teachings of the Calvinistic faith in its primal form, Christ made no atonement for the sins of the non-elect. Yet salvation through Christ is undeniably offered in the Scriptures to all mankind without exception, and, according to the express teachings of the sacred Word, the doom of the lost will be greatly aggravated in consequence of their rejection of "the grace of God which bringeth salvation." The question which here pressed with crushing weight upon reflective thought was this: How can grace, which only exists for a part, be sincerely offered unto all? and how can men be justly held responsible for the non-acceptance of grace which never existed for them, which could have been of no avail to them, had they accepted it, and which they had no power to accept? Such considerations induced multitudes of Calvinists, and among these not a few of the most influential thinkers in that school, to reject the doctrine of a partial, or particular, and embrace and avow that of a general, atonement. My own faith became, and that quite early, "rooted and grounded" in this latter doctrine.
In the deductions thus far successively reached, reflective thought still found no rest, being palpably confronted with such questions as these: How can a creature be justly blameable for rejecting grace which he has no power whatever to accept, or be justly held subject to eternal doom for not accepting mercy in the total absence of all power to do anything else but reject the proffer? In other words: How can obligation exist, in the total absence of all power of compliance? No deduction is, or can be, more intuitively absolute to reflective thought than is the intuition that obligation, and with it the desert of eternal doom, is, in the absence of all power of compliance, an utter impossibility. Hence the deduction made by multitudes in the school under consideration, namely, that mankind must be possessed of real power, in some form, to do the right and avoid the wrong, and to accept of the grace of God. This conviction gave rise to the famous distinction between the doctrines of natural and moral ability. All mankind, it was affirmed, have natural, but all have not moral, ability to do the will of God, and accept of the provisions of grace revealed in the Gospel.
The sinner, we were taught, does not need a new will, but a new direction of the activity of the will he has, in order to his keeping the commandments, and accepting the grace of God; and nothing but his choice of evil prevents his doing this. He, therefore, has natural power to do the right and avoid the wrong. He lacks moral power to do this, however, because, while the action of his will is in the direction of evil, and away from the good, he lacks, in the circumstances and relations in which he does act, the power of contrary choice, that is, real power to "break off his sins by righteousness, and his iniquities by cleaving unto the Lord," or to accept the grace provided for and proffered to him in the Gospel.
This doctrine of natural ability and moral inability, which, for many years, was a general theme of religious thought and discourse, was at length, when its character came to be clearly understood, found to leave the old difficulty just as it was before. According to this doctrine of moral inability, the will of the sinner is, in fact, in all its intentions, purposes, choices, and volitions, moving in the line of sin, in the total absence of all available power of contrary choice, that is, of putting forth any intentions, choices, or volitions, but sinful ones. As a consequence, that doctrine which, for a time, was supposed to shed eternal sunlight through the entire sphere of the Calvinistic faith, passed at length into a deserved oblivion.
The Crucial Question.
It was thus, that the progress of religious thought at last brought distinctly before the Calvinistic churches the great crucial question which divides and separates the real Calvinistic from all other forms of the evangelical faith. I refer to the fundamental question pertaining to the will itself, namely, Is the will, in all its activities, in common with physical causes and events in the world around us, subject to the law of necessary causation? Or is the will, in its activity, an exception to the rule of exterior causes and events, and subject to the law of liberty, in opposition to that of necessity? These two laws may be thus set forth: To the will existing in given circumstances and relations, but one intention, purpose, or choice is possible, and that one specific act must arise. This is the law of necessity, and to this law, according to the real Calvinistic faith, in all its forms, the will, in all its activities, is absolutely subject. In the circumstances and relations in which men sin, no other acts but those specific ones which they do put forth are possible to them, and these must arise. Take the entire course of disobedience by which each lost soul is landed in the gulf of death. In the circumstances and relations in which, by the providence of God, every one of these creatures existed and acted, only the one specific course which he did pursue was possible to him, and that one specific and exclusive course he could by no possibility but have pursued. Such is the doctrine of necessity, or of Calvinism proper, in all its forms. The opposite law, that of liberty, may be thus announced. To the will, when existing in given circumstances, either of two or more distinct, separate, and opposite intentions, purposes, or choices, is possible, and equally so; and when one given act is put forth, either of the others, and that with no change of relations and circumstances, might have been put forth in the stead of the one referred to. In other words, in the identical circumstances in which men do, in fact, "choose the evil and refuse the good," they might "choose the good and refuse the evil." In view of this doctrine we affirm, and necessarily believe, that man, as a moral agent, ought not, under any circumstances, to sin, because under no circumstances is he necessitated to sin, and because in the circumstances in which he does, he should not, because he may not, sin.
In the latter part of my theological course, and in the first years of my ministry, these doctrines came, with great distinctness and prominence, before the public mind, and became, throughout the entire domain of the Calvinistic churches in the United States, the subjects of the most earnest thought and discussion. Just at this time important events occurred which brought the subject before the American public, in circumstances most favourable to its final settlement. Two discourses, for example, On the Nature of Sin, were published by a very eminent and influential thinker, Professor Fitch, of Yale College. In these discourses, the position was taken and verified by proofs, which vast multitudes of the best thinkers in the nation deemed irrefragable, that sin proper, that for which the creature is subject to condemnation, consists exclusively in a voluntary transgression of known duty. Before sin is possible, the creature must "know to choose the good and refuse the evil;" and sin, in all its real forms, must consist in choosing the evil and refusing the good, their character being thus known. This doctrine did not deny, but fully admitted, a fallen, or what is called a sinful, nature in man, but affirmed that we are accountable, not for the mere existence of this nature, but for our voluntary action relatively to its promptings. With those who admitted this doctrine of sin, the question, "What are the real relations of the human will to sin?" became one of fundamental interest, one too which had to be met, and which was submitted under circumstances most favourable to its correct and final settlement. The question submitted is this: With the nature of which man is possessed, and in the circumstances in which God places him, is it true that nothing but the sin which man does commit is possible to him, and this sin he must commit? Or is it true that with this identical nature, and in these identical circumstances, in the stead of the sin which he does commit, the sinner may "choose the good and refuse the evil?" If the former question be answered in the affirmative, man is a necessary—and if the latter, he is a free—agent. It is self-evident, also, that one of these hypotheses must be true, and the other false, and all acts of sin, on the one hand, and of obedience on the other, must fall exclusively under one or the other of these relations. The considerations which finally induced me to change fundamentally my life-long and most fondly cherished belief and repudiate utterly the doctrine of necessity, and adopt that of liberty, were, among others, the following:
A fundamental Change of Base, and the Reasons for it.
I. On mature reflection, I came to the absolute conviction, that I must deny the former, and accept the latter doctrine, or affirm the intelligence, conscience, and moral nature of men, as God has constituted them, to be a lie. On the hypothesis, when distinctly apprehended, that with the nature which God has given them, and in the circumstances in which God has placed them, nothing but the sin which creatures do commit is possible to them, and that such sin they must commit, it is as impossible for the intelligence, the conscience, and moral nature to affirm that the subject ought not to sin, or is, or can be, deserving of eternal doom for sin, as it is to conceive of an event without a cause. In the propositions—Men ought to do what by no possibility they can do, and ought not to do what they cannot but do,—no meaning whatever attaches to the terms, ought and ought not. Either the reason, the conscience, and the moral nature, as God has constituted them, are a lie, or the doctrine of necessity is false, and "God has made free the human will."
2. Another all-valid reason why I repudiated the doctrine of necessity and adopted that of liberty, is the absolute testimony of the inner consciousness. Whenever we put forth an act of choice, we are as conscious of a power to choose differently from what we do, as we are that we exist at all. The remembrance of all past acts of choice is attended with the same absolute consciousness, that we might have chosen differently from what we did. Hence the remorse, and conscious desert of retribution, which attend the consciousness of sin. Take away the consciousness, that we might "choose the good, and refuse the evil," when we do refuse the good, and choose the evil, and all self-reproach, remorse, and conscious desert of doom would, of necessity, wholly drop out of human thought. The universal consciousness, as God has constituted it, is a lie, or man is a free, and not a necessary, agent.
3. As another form of absolute proof, that the doctrine of liberty is true, and that of necessity false, I did refer, and now refer, to the necessary intuitive convictions of the race. Lay before any mind on earth the proposition, that whenever rational mind chooses the evil and refuses the good, it might, instead of the sin, "choose the good, and refuse the evil," and the intuitive and absolute conviction will, of necessity, arise, that the evil should never, and the good should ever, be chosen. Lay before any mind, on the other hand, the proposition, that whenever, and wherever, the evil is chosen, and the good refused, none but those identical so-called sinful choices can arise, and these must arise, and the intuitive and necessary conviction will and must be induced, that no ill-desert does, or can, attach to sin, and no obligation to "choose the good, and refuse the evil," does, or can, exist. Outside of a narrow school in theology, wherever, and whenever, the doctrine of necessity has been affirmed, the ill-desert of sin, and obligation to do the right, have been absolutely denied, and the absolute intuitions of the race have affirmed the validity of that denial. Shall we affirm universal and absolute intuition to be a lie? We must do so, or repudiate this doctrine of necessity, and accept, as true, the intuitive fact, that "God has made free the human will."
4. Nor should the admissions of Necessitarians be overlooked in this connection. No such individual ever pretended that he could understand how and why a sinner can deserve eternal doom, or be criminal at all, for any acts of choice, when only these specific acts are possible to him, and these he must put forth. The only defence set up is this, that the subject is mysterious to us, and may be all plain to the Divine Mind. In reply, we say, that there is no mystery whatever in or about this doctrine; the whole subject being perfectly understood, just as perfectly as is the proposition, that the same object cannot exist and not exist, and that at the same moment of time. The doctrine of necessity affirms that in every act of sin, in the circumstances of its occurrence, none but this one act is possible to the subject, and this he must commit; and that God holds the subject as deserving eternal doom for an act thus committed. Every term and element of this proposition is as perfectly understood, as is the proposition, that there can be no event without a cause, or that two and two make four. The Necessitarian cannot perceive how and why his doctrine can be true, and the creature be responsible for his acts of choice, for that simple and exclusive reason, that such responsibility, his doctrine being admitted, is as inconceivable as is the non-being of space.
5. Equally explicit, as I clearly saw, are all the express and implied revelations of Scripture in respect to this subject. In the sacred Word, God appeals to the reason, conscience, and moral nature of man in verification of the integrity and rectitude of His moral administration. "Are not My ways equal?" "Judge, I pray you, betwixt Me and My vineyard." The Most High allows His creatures to put to Him the question "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" In view of such facts, the deduction is self-evident, that God's retributive administration is not, and cannot be, based upon a principle which renders it absolutely impossible for the reason and conscience of all rationals, good and bad in common, not to condemn and reprobate that principle. Let it be known at the final judgment,—and it will be known if the doctrine of necessity is true,—that in the circumstances, Divinely ordered, in which the sins for which the lost are doomed to eternal punishment were committed, no other acts but those specific sins were possible, and these could by no possibility but have been committed; and the reason and conscience of no man, angel, or devil, will or can respond to the rectitude and justice of that doom. If it shall then appear, on the other hand,—and it will appear, if "God has made free the human will,"—that in the identical circumstances in which the lost did sin, they might, and consequently should, have "chosen the good, and refused the evil," the reason, conscience, and moral nature of every man, angel, and devil, will and must respond to the acclaim: "True and righteous are Thy judgments, O Lord, Thou King of Saints." In absolutely affirming the accordance of the moral administration of God with the necessary intuitions of the reason, conscience, and moral nature of man, the Scriptures have, in the most absolute form conceivable, affirmed the freedom of the will, and denied the doctrine of necessity.
All the commands and prohibitions, promises and threatenings, invitations and admonitions of Scripture imply the same great truth. In the Scriptures God affirms absolutely, that "He will have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth;" and that "He has no pleasure at all in the death of the sinner, but that he should turn from his evil way, and live." "Turn ye, turn ye; for why will ye die?" God also calls upon heaven and earth to unite with Him in astonishment at the conduct of sinners in the circumstances in which He has located them. "Be astonished, O heavens, at this." "Why, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?" Suppose, that the Most High should place a mass of water on an inclined plane, and, leaving it there to the exclusive action of natural law, should express infinite wonder, and should call upon the universe to unite with Him in astonishment, that this mass should run down, instead of up, that plane. An absurdity identical with this, the Necessitarian undeniably attributes to God, in the revelations of His Word, in respect to sin and sinners. According to the fundamental principles of the Necessitarian creed, God does, in accordance with His own eternal and unchangeable foreordination, place creatures in circumstances in which no form of moral action is possible to them but the sins they do commit and must commit, and then expresses infinite wonder, and calls upon the universe to unite with Him in astonishment, that they should sin. Having—so this doctrine affirms—from eternity unchangeably foreordained their eternal doom, and having in time located them in circumstances where they cannot but sin, and "die in their sins," God affirms, under oath, that He is not willing that one of these eternally and unchangeably doomed creatures should perish. No,—I said, and now repeat,—God is not thus self-contradictory and absurd in His Divine Word, and this monstrous doctrine of necessity is, and must be, both unscriptural and false. How reasonable and right, on the other hand, do all such Scriptures appear, on the hypothesis that the will is free, and not subject to the principle of necessity! On the hypothesis that when creatures do sin, they may "choose the good and refuse the evil," the central mystery of the universe is the fact that rational beings do sin, and "the Judge of all the earth" is reasonable and right in His revelations in regard to sin and sinners.
6. One other collateral reason, of great weight, I did not overlook, in fixing and settling my faith on this great question. At the time when the inspired apostles lived, and the New Testament was written, the doctrine of necessity was distinctly held and taught among the Pharisees and leading sects among the Jews, and was a fundamental element of all the philosophies then known. The Spirit of inspiration in the apostolic writers could not have been indifferent, or silent, in respect to so fundamental a doctrine. Their views in respect to it, on the other hand, could not, from the nature of the case, have been misapprehended by their contemporaries and immediate followers. Should we find, therefore, that the leading thinkers and writers in the primitive Church not only clearly understood this subject, but, with open and united voice, opposed and reprobated the doctrine of necessity, and affirmed and advocated that of liberty, the deduction is absolute, that inspired apostles did teach and hand down this latter doctrine, as the truth of God. That such were the facts, I will now proceed to verify "by many infallible proofs."
(I.) The advocates of this doctrine of necessity, who have most carefully examined the subject, have not been able to find even a trace of their doctrine among the early writings of the primitive Church. None will question the truth of this statement.
(2.) The unanimous testimony of learned men who have fully acquainted themselves with all the facts of the case, is that the primitive Church universally held and taught the doctrine of liberty, as opposed to that of necessity. "Every one," says Mosheim, "knows that the peculiar doctrines" (among which that of necessity was most prominent) "to which the victory was assigned by the Synod (of Dort) were absolutely unknown to the first ages of the Church." Had not this assertion been strictly true, the Calvinistic translators of Mosheim, Maclame and Murdock, would, in their notes, have contradicted it. Neander, than whom no one is of higher authority in Church history, in speaking of the first three centuries of the Christian era, says, that the Church teachers "agreed unanimously in maintaining the free will of man as a necessary condition of the existence of morality." "The earliest fathers," says Bretschneider, "unanimously ascribe to man freedom of will, according to which he can choose either the good or the bad." "All the fathers," says the learned Wiggers, "differed from Augustine and agreed with the Pelagians in attributing free will to man." To the same effect is the testimony of Knapp, Dr. Whitby, and all others who have spoken upon the subject. With this testimony even Calvin fully agrees. "The Greek fathers," he says, "and among them especially Chrysostom, have exceeded bounds in extolling the power of the human will." "The Latin fathers," he says again, "have always retained the word 'free will.'" Authorities to any required amount—and all on one side exclusively, there being none on the other —might be multiplied. But these are sufficient.
(3.) The testimony of a few only of these fathers will remove all doubt on this subject. "Every created being," says Justin Martyr, in the second century, "is so constituted as to be capable of vice and virtue. For he could do nothing praiseworthy, if he had not the power of turning either way." "Unless we suppose," he says again, "that man has power to choose the good and refuse the evil, no one can be accountable for any action whatever." "God," he says once more, "has not made men like trees and brutes, without the power of election." "No reward," says Tertullian, of the same century, "can justly be bestowed, no punishment can justly be inflicted, upon him who is good or bad by necessity, and not by his own choice." "Man, a reasonable being," says Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, in the same century, "and in that respect like God, is made free in his will, and, having power over himself, is the cause that sometimes he becomes wheat and sometimes chaff." "What is forced," says Basil, one of the most distinguished of the ancient fathers, "is not pleasing to God, but what comes from a truly virtuous motive; and virtue comes from the will, not from necessity." "Within us," he says again, "is free will." "Forasmuch as God," says Chrysostom, "has put good and evil in our power, He has given us a free power to choose the one or the other; and as He does not retain us against our will, so He embraces us when we are willing." "God," says Jerome, "hath endowed us with free will. We are not necessarily drawn either to virtue or vice. For where necessity rules, there is no room left either for damnation or the crown." "It would be more just," says Epiphanius, "to punish the stars, which make a wicked action necessary"—this refers to the heathen notion that the stars determine destiny—"than to punish the poor man who does that wicked action by necessity." "The soul," says Origen, "does not incline to either part out of necessity, for then neither vice nor virtue could be ascribed to it; nor could its choice of virtue deserve reward, nor its declination to vice punishment." "How," he asks, "could God require that of man which he had not power to offer Him?" "Ten thousand things," says Theodoret, "may be found both in the Gospels and authorities of the apostles, clearly manifesting the liberty and self-election of man."
"How," he asks, "can He punish a nature which had no power to do good, but was bound in the bands of wickedness?" "Neither promises nor reprehensions, rewards nor punishments, are just," says Clemen[t] of Alexandria, "if the soul has not the power of choosing or abstaining." "This opinion," the doctrine of necessity, says Eusebius, "absolves sinners, as doing nothing of their own accord which was evil, and would cast all the blame of all wickedness committed in the world upon God and upon His providence." Didymus, of the fourth century, says, "And this"—the doctrine of free will—"is not only ours, but the opinion of all who speak Orthodoxly" —according to the doctrine of the universal Church—"of rational beings."
Nor was even Augustine a Necessitarian in the modern sense of the term. "They that come to Christ," he says, "ought not to impute it to themselves, because they come, being called; and they that would not come, ought not to impute it to another, but only to themselves, because, when they were called, it was in the power of their free will to come."
The above citations, taken almost at random from the mass that might be quoted clearly verify two important deductions—that the primitive fathers understood the real distinction between the doctrines of liberty and necessity, and unanimously, none dissenting, repudiated the latter doctrine, and adopted and advocated the former. Nor can this absolute unanimity be accounted for except upon one exclusive hypothesis, namely, that the doctrine thus unanimously held was in fact and form handed down to the primitive Church, and that directly and immediately, by inspired apostles as the truth of God. The doctrine of necessity, as I clearly saw, is a dark innovation upon the universal primitive faith, "the faith once" Divinely "delivered to the saints."
In thus repudiating the doctrine which I had been specifically taught from my childhood up, and which I had received as self-evident, and having, after the most careful research, gained this new and safe position, I had, as I clearly saw, reached a very far-sweeping conclusion, one which required me fundamentally to reconstruct my entire system of theology, and to "read with new eyes" the Word of God. The progress I made in accomplishing these results will be disclosed in future chapters.
CHAPTER XI.
THE GREAT WESTERN REVIVALS, 1824-1832.
WHILE the world shall stand, the great western revivals will, we may safely presume, constitute a memorable era in the history of the Church of God. Having had, from the beginning, a personal knowledge of the facts as they occurred, having been an active participator in the work and a careful observer of the events as they occurred, and "having had a perfect understanding of all things from the very first," it has seemed good to me, being the only survivor, so far as I am aware, who enjoyed such advantages, to devote one chapter of this autobiography to a special consideration of those revivals, in order that their leading characteristics, the secret of their power, and the causes of their decline, may be clearly understood by the present and coming generations.
The Autobiography of President Finney contains a detail of the facts which came under his personal observation, and with which he had an immediate connection. The careful reader of that work, however, will fail to obtain from it distinct apprehensions of the peculiar and special characteristics of these facts of the causes which induced them, and of the reasons why that cloud of mercy which overshadowed the churches, and gave promise of ever-enduring fertility, so soon dispersed, and was followed by long years of spiritual dearth. In accomplishing the object I have in view, I will in the first place present
Some general Facts and Characteristics of this great Work.
I. If we compare this with other special works of grace which have occurred before and since that period, it will be difficult, or impossible, to designate a revival equalling this either in extent or power. During the space of a single year, including portions of the years 1830 and 1831, ministers best informed stated that quite two hundred thousand converts were gathered into the churches in the United States, the number of inhabitants then being not one-third as great as now. This was the period when the work became most general and powerful, not one-fifth of the number mentioned being gathered in during any other year. It was at this period that the work took the appearance of nationality; the nation itself—the Northern States, and some of the Southern—being moved by it. Nor do we know of any other revival that in this respect can be compared with this. Nor can any other revival be pointed out which will bear comparison with this in the extent in which leading minds in the community were brought under its influence. It was not unfrequently the case that the mass of such individuals were converted, and thus an entire change was produced, not only in the religious, but in the moral state of entire communities.
2. The character of the converts in those revivals demands very especial consideration. In no revival that can be designated was the number of apostasies among converts smaller than in these. In the many powerful revivals which occurred under my own labours, I feel quite safe in expressing the judgment that not five in one hundred of the converts turned back to the world. A similar judgment may safely be passed upon these converts generally in all parts of the country. Apostasies of course did occur; and among those who turned back were some whose conversions were regarded as of the most marked character, and who for a succession of years gave the brightest promise of great usefulness. One individual, for example, whose conversion is detailed in Mr. Finney's Memoir, as a fact of national notoriety, and who for some years shone forth as a star of the first magnitude, suddenly faced about, "denied the Lord that bought him," and down to old age has not had "a name to live" among "the sons of God." I might specify other cases; but I rejoice rather to record that such instances were "few and far between."
The converts uniformly entered upon the profession of the religious life with the most clear and distinct apprehension of the totality of the sinfulness of their unregenerate lives; with the conviction equally clear and definite of the utter inexcusableness of sin in every form and degree, and of their own personal desert of eternal doom on account of their sins; with an absolute renunciation and confession of sin in all its forms; with a supreme dedication of their entire being and all their interests to the will and service of God; and with absolute and exclusive dependence upon the mercy and grace of God in Christ for pardon. On all such topics they received the most careful instructions from their teachers. They were most fully assured that a refusal to abandon any known sin, or to discharge any known duty, would hopelessly exclude them from the kingdom of God.
Conversions, occurring under such instructions and convictions, can hardly fail to be genuine. As a consequence, these converts were "known and read of all men," as "pillars" in the churches of God, as the advocates of every good cause, as the zealous promoters of every good work, and as "sowing bountifully" for the spread of the Gospel at home and abroad. Not a few professional men turned aside from profitable callings and devoted their lives to "the work of the ministry;" multitudes of young men abandoned all their worldly plans and prospects, entered the "schools of the prophets," and, having graduated there, were admitted to the sacred office; while a great number, men and women, left their homes, their kindred, and country, for missionary service in heathen lands, and there laid down their bodies, while their spirits went to everlasting homes in the kingdom of light.
One very marked peculiarity of these converts I should not fail to mention in this connection. I refer to their influence in promoting the revivals through which they were converted. Converts were then distinctly instructed, that in accepting Christ as their eternal Life, they dedicated their entire being and possessions to His kingdom and glory. Hence, from the beginning of their new life, they became active and most efficient participants in the work of saving souls. In cases not a few, revivals of great power were occasioned in places remote from any revival centre, wholly through the influence of individuals who were converted while on visits of business or pleasure at such centres. During my first pastorate, for example, when a powerful work of grace was going on around me, a stranger, with his wife, called upon me, one morning just after breakfast. They came from a neighbouring township, where there was no revival, and no minister settled at the time over any of its churches. But the influence of the work in Rochester, where Mr. Finney was preaching, had reached them. They informed me that they had called for one exclusive purpose—to know "what they should do to be saved." After receiving needful instruction, they unitedly and deliberately commended themselves to the mercy and grace of God in Christ Jesus. When we rose from prayer, the husband, after bowing his head for a few moments in deep thought, uttered these words: "The Lord is my portion. From this moment, I have nothing to live for but to serve and glorify Him." With my blessing, they "went on their way rejoicing." On returning home, they, the husband especially, began at once to stir up the members of the church, and to press their former associates in sin to come to Christ. The result was an addition of more than two hundred souls to the churches in that township.
When Brother Finney was labouring in Philadelphia in the spring of 1829, and when the Delaware river was high, many lumbermen, who came to the city from the northern part of the State, were drawn into his meetings, and were there "soundly converted." They came from a region where there were no churches or ministers of any kind. On their return to their homes, they gathered the people together, told them of the wonderful work of God which they had witnessed, and of their own conversion, and exhorted all around to seek "the great salvation." The result was, that, wholly through the labours and prayers of these young converts, churches were afterwards organised in those regions numbering more than five thousand souls. Such were the spirit and character of these converts everywhere.
There was a very wide, and, in our judgment, a very melancholy, contrast between the character of the converts gathered through these revivals, and those gathered through that which occurred about the year 1857. It has been recorded, and is often spoken of, as the glory of this last work, that it was begun and carried on almost exclusively by prayer. "Prayer ardent" never more widely opened heaven than during the great revivals above treated of. But prayer then brought down the power of the Spirit, and thus moved all the energies of the mental being, loosened the tongue, prompted to fervent exhortation, to personal appeals, and to visitations from house to house; while from the pulpit now "a violated law spoke out its thunders," and then, "in strains as sweet as angels use, the Gospel whispered peace." This was in strong contrast to the manifestations in the revival of 1857. In the public gatherings of that revival services would be commenced with a hymn, and reading a passage of Scripture. Then several prayers would be offered. Again there would be singing, followed by prayers as before, and so on to the close. Speaking to saints or sinners did not appear to be welcome in those meetings, while preaching was not characterised, for the most part, by fervency of spirit. I then said, as I had opportunity, to ministers and church members, that if their prayers should not avail to open their mouths to exhort sinners to repent, and believers to active labours for the conversion of souls, the revival would be a comparative failure; and so, to a great extent, it proved. The younger Dr. Duffield spoke to me at the time of the marked contrast in the character of the converts in these two revivals. "Converts in those old revivals," he remarked, "seemed to be filled with spiritual vitality from their birth. Now we have to examine our so-called convert with great care before we can determine whether he has, or has not, the breath of spiritual life in him."
3. The influence of these revivals upon believers already members of the churches, requires very special notice. I had been but a short time in the ministry, before I distinctly uttered, in the interior of my own mind, these identical words: "We are on the eve of a great and general revival of religion, or our churches will, ere long, become extinct." My reasons for that conviction were twofold: the general and embittered opposition to religion itself, and the appalling neglect of religious services, on the part of the unconverted outside the churches, on the one hand; and the utter worldliness and indifference to the interests of souls and the cause of religion itself on the part of professors of Christianity, on the other. No one not personally acquainted with the facts as they were can conceive how appalling these two aspects of the moral and religious state of the community then appeared. In the spring and summer of 1830, months before Mr. Finney came to Rochester, and before it was known that he had thought of doing so, a visible change, from no known cause, came over the public mind. Scoffing at sacred things, and bitter opposition to religious truth, spontaneously disappeared. Our congregations on the Sabbath gradually increased, while an unwonted solemnity rested upon them in all sacred exercises. This was attended with occasional conversions in various directions. These facts I heard referred to by various ministers. They made manifest the gathering of the cloud far in the heavens above us, while the windows of heaven were not yet opened.
When it was heard that Mr. Finney was contemplating a visit to Rochester, the intelligence was received with deep regret by the entire ministry, as far as I know, in Western New York, such was the impression which had generally obtained there in regard to the character of the revivals under his preaching. One of our most influential pastors said to me that if we should hear that he was likely to come among us, the Presbyterian and Congregational ministers must forward to him a united protest against his advent. Before anything was done, however, he appeared in Rochester, and commenced preaching in the Third Presbyterian Church, which was then without a pastor. Such was the power which, from the first, attended his preaching, and such was its character, that he was very soon invited to the pulpits of the two other Presbyterian churches in the city. Ministers and leading members of the churches from all directions visited the city, and "when they had seen the grace of God they were glad," gave testimony to the truth while there, and returned home to testify to their own people, with renewed fervency, "the Gospel of the grace of God." Numbers, also, of unconverted men and women, many of them of leading influence, visited the city, and returned home, not only "new creatures in Christ Jesus," but burdened with burning desire and zeal for the salvation of their former associates in worldliness and sin. The first result was the disappearance of all opposition to Mr. Finney and the work of God under his influence, and unity of spirit in prayer and labours for the conversion of sinners, such as had characterised no preceding work of grace. I refer now to the entire region of Middle and Western New York. The crowning result was the "opening of the windows of heaven, and the pouring out" of such blessings as our nation had never before witnessed.
Unity of spirit, and unity of effort for the salvation of sinners, were not the only or the most marked characteristic of these revivals, in their influence upon professing Christians. Throughout the churches there were great "searchings of heart." Believers generally were led to careful and deep self-examination, and to a thorough reconstruction of their entire Christian character and life. What had been wrong between brethren was carefully and fully adjusted; sins against God and men were confessed and forsaken, and the religious life was started anew, upon the principle of supreme consecration to Christ. The doctrine was everywhere clearly and impressively set forth that no acceptable service could be rendered to Christ with a divided heart, and that only in a state of total separation from all sin, and supreme devotion to the will and service of God, would He pardon our sins, hear our prayers, "be our God," and receive us as "His sons and daughters." Never in the history of the world, as I believe, were Christians more sincere, ardent, and single-hearted, than at the period to which I refer.
"The spirit of grace and of supplications" then poured out upon believers was another most marked characteristic of these revivals. "Having sinners upon the heart," "burdened with souls," "spending nights in prayer," and "having power with God and with men,"—these were common expressions at that time, and characterised what actually took place. I knew cases in which whole families were converted, and communities were moved from centre to circumference, from no other assignable cause.
During my pastorate at Pittsford, N.Y., and while the great revival was in progress, having occasion to visit Rochester, I was met by a Christian friend, who, rushing towards me, exclaimed, "Do, Brother Mahan, call at once at our house. Our precious mother has just died, and we are all in great anguish." As I entered, I saw a large group of sons and daughters, and their companions, weeping about that bed of death. On the bed lay that lifeless body, just as the spirit had left it, less than half an hour previous. But such a countenance I never looked upon before or since. Two expressions lay upon it with the most impressive distinctness,—of intense supplication and entreaty, and of the most ecstatic joy. The manner of her death was in this wise. At the commencement of the revival, she set her whole heart upon the conversion of every one of her children and their companions. Each in turn was, with the intensest fervency, borne to the throne of grace, until all but a tenderly beloved son-in-law were converted. Her whole being was centred upon him. So intense did her desires and prayers become that she was, at length, necessitated to retire to her bed. While engaged there in intense supplication, one of her sons came in, and, with great joy upon his countenance, said, "Mother, brother is converted. A little while ago, he gave his heart to God." "O my head!" exclaimed the mother, pressing her hand upon her forehead, and never stirring or breathing after that. The facts stated explained the appearance of that countenance, as well as the cause of death.
An ungodly and reckless son of a mother in Israel had gone to a distance from home, and was engaged in a form of business in which he was exposed to temptation of the most perilous character. The mother took the case to the throne of grace for months, and pressed it there with an intensity of supplication almost too great for her physical strength. At length the burden was suddenly rolled from her spirit, and further supplication seemed impossible. To her friends around her she said, "My son is either converted or dead. I cannot pray for him any more." At the very moment when that burden was rolled away, as near as could be discovered, that son, when lying in jail for crime, was converted, and subsequently, as a preacher of the Gospel, won thousands of souls to Christ. It was very common at that time for burdens to be taken from praying souls at the very moment when the individuals prayed for were converted, even when the parties were at unknown distances from each other. Of a daughter of that mother it was said that, go where she would, the community around her would soon be moved by a deep religious influence, and that from no known cause but her prayers, she not being a public speaker at all. Similar remarks were made with regard to a half-sister of mine. In all the region round where she lived, her name was "as ointment poured forth," and all on account of her godly life, and mighty power at the throne of grace.
I must refer to one case more. Soon after my settlement in Cincinnati, a gentleman from New Richmond, a village on the Ohio river some twenty or more miles above the city, called upon me. He was a convert from those Western Revivals, and had settled and married in that village. His mind seemed to be burdened with that whole people. One man was never absent from his thoughts—his father-in-law, who was a wealthy and influential man, but a violent atheist. That man must be saved. Every few months the son-in-law would visit me, to induce me to go up there and labour for a revival of religion. I was ready to go when the way was open, but neither pastors nor churches could be induced to move in the matter. Soon after my removal to Oberlin, I received a letter and then a visit from him, and all for one purpose, to induce brother Finney or myself to go back with him and labour for the salvation of that people. No invitation, however, came to either of us except from this one man. So he returned alone. At length, from no visible cause, a cloud of mercy overshadowed that place, and flooded it with salvation. One of the greatest revivals occurred there that was ever known in the United States, and that father-in-law was one of the first converts. The Rev. [James Barr] Walker, D.D., author of The Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation, became, for a time, pastor of the Presbyterian church of that place. In a written account of the results of that revival, Dr. Walker said that New Richmond was the most godly place he ever knew, Oberlin excepted; and that that father-in-law was one of the most godly men he ever met with. He further stated that no one doubted at all that the sole cause of that work of grace was, the example and prayers of that one man. But what became of that man of God? When he saw the revival in full power, and that father-in-law a saint of God, the spectacle was too much for his physical strength. His vital powers gave way, and his spirit went to its reward.
It is hardly presumptuous, I judge, to express the belief that the world now feels, and ever will feel, the influence of the prayers of father Nash, that holy man who was at last found in his closet, on his knees dead before God; a very fitting place and condition for such a man to die in. He could never, after the Holy Ghost fell upon him, be in any place for any considerable time, without the whole population around being moved through his prayers. He was accustomed to set apart days of fasting and prayer for different nations and portions of the earth, and especially for each missionary station in heathen lands. In his journal, after his death, was found recorded such a memorandum as this, in respect to every missionary station of the American Board in India, the date and place being mentioned in each instance: "I think I have this day had a spirit of prayer for this station." So on in regard to each station in succession. In turning to the Missionary Herald, it was found there recorded, that at the time and day specified a revival of religion actually commenced in each station in succession; the date of the prayer and the commencement of the revival being, in every case, exactly coincident.
The Decline.
It would seem, at first thought, that a revival of such pre-eminent characteristics and power would never know a decline; and that old believers, who had thus "renewed their strength," and had started anew upon the principle of supreme consecration, and who had placed themselves under such solemn vows never again to "grieve the Holy Spirit of God," and converts imbued with such a spirit, and encircled with such associations, would never backslide. Yet but a few years intervened before "the glory departed." Nothing, as Mr. Finney states in his Memoir, could arrest the fixed tendency in the churches to backslide; and what was most remarkable was the fact, as brother Finney states, that old professors were uniformly the first to fall back, and drag the converts after them. What was peculiar about the state of things was the fact, that revival measures, protracted meetings, for example, in a few years, lost almost all their power. Many of those churches, also, in which the revival had existed with the greatest power, and which had received the greatest number of converts, remained longest without the return of such Divine visitations. In instances not a few, a visible reluctance to re-engage in any revival measures would be manifested. About the time, for example, when I commenced my labours in Cincinnati, a special meeting of great power was held at Oxford, the seat of the State University, a meeting which resulted in the addition of upwards of one hundred converts to the Presbyterian church in the place. Several years after that, I inquired of the pastor of that church, the Rev. — Little, how those converts had held out. His reply was, that all had held out well, with the exception of four or five, with whom there had been not a little trouble. No persuasion, he added, could induce his church, the older and most influential members especially, to consent to the holding again of any such special services. Whenever the measure was proposed, reference would be had, at once, to the immense trouble they had had with those four or five apostates; no account being taken of the one hundred souls saved from death. Instances not unlike that were not few nor far between among our most favoured churches.
Among the majority of the pastors and evangelists who had the greatest power during these revivals there was, after the period of Divine visitation had passed, a loss of such power, a loss from which they never recovered. I will refer to two cases in illustration. The minister in the first case had, no doubt, greater revival power, and was more frequently called to the aid of other churches, than any other pastor in the United States. So he continued during that period, and for some years after. About the year 1842, while I was spending our winter vacation in Boston, he spent between two and three months in special services in Park Street Church. Morning prayer meetings, and special services during the day, were constantly held, and preaching each evening, all very largely attended. After these services had been continued for about two months, a member of that church said to the pastor of the church where I was preaching, "We hope that two conversions have occurred in connection with Mr. —'s labours in our church. We do not wish the matter talked about, however, as we do not desire to get up an excitement." Such was the exact report made to me, and such were the results of the labours referred to. After a while, that pastor, who was then in his meridian, discontinued such efforts for life. The second case was my immediate successor in the pastoral office in Cincinnati. In all those great revivals he had been one of our most powerful and successful preachers. During his pastorate in that city, he put forth his best efforts, and preached all his great revival discourses, discourses under which hundreds of souls had been converted. But all to very little purpose, and his power as a preacher was never renewed.
It is with pain that I refer to the evangelists of that era. Among them all—and I was personally acquainted with nearly every one of them—I cannot recall a single man, brother Finney and father Nash excepted, who did not after a few years lose his unction, and become equally disqualified for the office of evangelist and that of pastor. The individual who, next to Mr. Finney, had the widest popularity and influence, when in the meridian of life, left the ministry, and lived and died a banker, manifesting no disposition to preach the Gospel to any class of men. The individual who probably stood next to him, after a series of years of most successful labour, retired into the far Western States, and I could never learn even his whereabouts. One who was very constantly with Mr. Finney, and laboured, for a time, as his successor in Chatham Street Chapel, in the City of New York, abandoned wholly the evangelical faith. Another, a preacher of great power, first joined Noyes, the Free Lover, and then the infidel abolitionists of the Garrison school. What finally became of him I never learned.
I refer to but one other case from the painful catalogue before me. This individual probably had as great power over his audiences as any that can be named, and multitudes were no doubt won to Christ through his influence. While I was a student at Andover, our Professor of Rhetoric, Dr. Porter, one of the most accurate judges of a sermon in the world, visited Saratoga for his health, during our summer vacation. He found this evangelist there also for rest and recuperation. Great interest was manifested to hear him preach, and he at length consented to do so. On his return, Dr. Porter gave his class an account of that discourse, pronouncing it the most remarkable one he had ever heard. The subject was, "Elijah in prayer on the top of Carmel." "During the discourse," said the doctor, "the entire audience seemed to be lifted up into the unveiled presence of the Infinite and Eternal Mind, and to be speaking to God face to face. I do not believe," he added, "that there is another man in the world that could lift an audience to such a fearful height and then let them down again without a palpable failure in the lifting up or letting down. The discourse, however, was a perfect success in both and in all respects." The last time I met that evangelist was when, in company with a minister, a special friend of his, I was on my way from Oberlin to Cleveland. He told us in parting, that he had just left a great revival, and was on his way, for absolutely necessary rest, to visit his friends in Michigan. We afterwards learned that he was going as a fugitive from the legal liabilities of his vices, and he subsequently, I believe, led a kind of vagabond life. Among the most spiritual members of the churches those revivals were finally followed by the most sorrowful conscious failures of their former fixed purposes and fond hopes, and by such groaning "bondage under the law of sin and death" as, perhaps, was never heard of before. The students that came to us at Oberlin from Lane Seminary and the churches generally, were from among the brightest converts in these revivals. Yet their common experience was represented in the words:—
"Where is the blessedness I knew,
When first I saw the Lord?"
The general inquiry also was, "How can we recover the brightness of that rising?" So it was with believers generally.
Causes of the Decline.
Facts of Christian experience and life so general, so dishonouring to religion itself and so contrary to the most cherished expectation of the ministry and churches, must have their origin in causes which lie very deep in human nature itself and greatly need to be understood, that their disastrous effects may be prevented in future. Of these causes, as they lie clearly and distinctly before my own mind, after careful observation and reflection, of many years' continuance, I will specify the following as demanding special consideration.
I. As one important cause, I would notice what may be designated as a leading characteristic of these revivals, namely, their controversial character. Between different denominations the lines were then very distinctly drawn and wherever a work of grace was in progress each sect, for the most part, carried forward the work within its own circle, independently of every other, while the peculiarities of each would be a matter of frequent discussion among the others. Thus, sectarian bitterness often limited the operations of free grace, and induced a spirit unfavourable to a return of such visitations. Individuals living in this period of widespread Christian union can hardly conceive how disastrously the sectarian spirit then operated. The great dread of pastors and evangelists, at the commencement of a revival, would be the creeping in of some unimportant issue, to divert the public mind and the attention of converts and inquirers to some sectarian dogma, such as the mode of baptism. In some cases, Mr. Finney found it necessary to stop preaching to sinners, and settle such issues, before he could go forward successfully with the work. After the converts were gathered in, and were about to determine their church connections, these issues would become the all-absorbing subject of thought and discussion with them and the members of the churches. Thus, at the turning period of the Christian life, attention was permanently diverted from the only vital subjects of concern, and fixed in the direction of controversies which only deaden soul growth and culture.
During the progress of these revivals, also, certain "new measures," as they were then called, were introduced, and attracted much public attention, and occasioned no little disputation in the churches. I refer to the use of "inquiry seats," and the introduction of the practice of females praying and speaking in social meetings. There arose, at that time also, questions of vital interest, in public regard, in respect to the proper mode of directing inquiring sinners, as to whether they should be exhorted and directed to "seek religion" and "pray for new hearts," or to at once forsake sin, submit to God, and commit the interests of their soul's eternity to Christ. In favour of the "new measures," and the doctrine of immediate and unconditional submission, Mr. Finney and others were very zealous, and often assailed the opposite views with such violence and ridicule as, in my judgment at the time, to give needless offence to sister denominations, and to many ministers and members of our own. Evangelists who took their cue from Mr. Finney pressed such issues far beyond what he deemed prudent. Thus, thought and discourse were very much diverted from what was to the convert of absolutely vital concernment, to non-essentials; all adding to the force of the causes which induced the backslidings which ensued.
The era of these revivals, we must bear in mind, was the era, throughout the Presbyterian and Congregational churches in the United States, of one of the most protracted and embittered doctrinal controversies ever known in the history of the Church of God; a controversy which, a few years after, led to the disruption of the entire Presbyterian denomination. The parties in this controversy took the name of Old School and New School. The former adhered literally and unqualifiedly to the entire teachings of the Confession of Faith, and maintained that any denial, or essential modification, on the part of any Presbyterian minister, of any doctrine, clearly set forth in the Confession, was a violation of his oath of office, and a just subject of discipline, he having at his ordination accepted and adopted the said Confession, "as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Scriptures." In all discussions, the Old School refused to allow of any appeal to Scripture, the only question to be raised being, "What saith the Confession of Faith?" In two vital respects the New was at open issue with the Old School. The former denied utterly any such relations, on the part of the Presbyterian minister, as the latter contended for. The Confession itself, as they showed, denied to itself, in fact and form, any such authority as the Old School contended for; that instrument affirming absolutely, that not itself, but "the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the only all-authoritative, all-sufllcient, and infallible rule of faith and practice, and the only authoritative standard of appeal and judgment in all questions of doctrine and duty." On these points the teachings of the Confession are perfectly plain and explicit. Hence, as the New School justly claimed, if, in any respects, the Confession teaches what is unscriptural, and any one discovers and points out the error, the Confession itself commends him, and all are bound to commend, instead of imputing crime to him. Then, in all trials for heresy, the Confession requires that the judicatory, trying the case, shall first of all inquire whether the error charged is essential, plainly contrary to Scripture, or of corrupt tendency. If none of these is found to be true, the body is prohibited issuing the case at all. Finally, the Confession makes specific provision for its own amendment. According to the Old School construction, as the New School rightly contended, the instrument could not be changed at all, until after two-thirds of the ministers and elders, in the whole Presbyterian body, had violated their oaths of office, and forfeited all right to a standing in the denomination at all. In all respects, as far as the Confession of Faith is concerned, the position of the New School was impregnable; that instrument being not at all arbitrary, but truly catholic in its spirit and principles.
In respect to doctrinal issues, the New School stood at the antipodes of the Five Points of high Calvinism; denying utterly the imputation of Adam's sin to any of his posterity; denying, also, that God holds the entire race "as deserving His wrath and curse, not only in this world, but in that which is to come," not only for the one sin of Adam, but for the possession of a nature which, without any knowledge, choice, or agency on their part, and wholly by the generating agency of God Himself they derived from Adam; affirming the universality of the atonement, of the offer of free grace through Christ, and of the influences of the Spirit; asserting that, as moral agents, men are endowed with free will, by which they have available power to yield to the strivings of the Spirit, accept of mercy and grace through Christ, and thus attain to eternal life; that "God is not willing that ANY should perish," but "will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth;" and finally, that the decree of election and reprobation is not arbitrary, but based upon foreseen acceptance and rejection of free grace and mercy. The Old School in the Congregational denomination rejected the doctrine of the imputation of Adam's sin, and of our desert of eternal doom for a nature derived from Adam, and the doctrine of a particular atonement; but agreed with the Old School among the Presbyterians in respect to the doctrine of decrees, of eternal and unconditional election and reprobation, of the necessity of all human volitions and choices, the real inability of sinners to accept of offered grace and mercy, and the granting of the converting influences of the Spirit to the elect only, giving to the non-elect such influences only as result in their increased guilt and condemnation.
Such were the great doctrinal issues which were joined during the progress of these revivals, and which continued to agitate the churches during their continuance, and for years thereafter. As these revivals were everywhere identified with those New School views, they, and the measures by which they were promoted, became objects of open opposition on the part of the Old School generally, and revivals in every form everywhere disappeared from these churches. Then the bitterness with which the controversy was carried on by this school very generally, was utterly incompatible with the indwelling and cooperation of the Holy Spirit. I will present a single fact in illustration. The known leader of the Old School party in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana, was the pastor of the first Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati. With his New School brethren he, and those who sympathised with him, would have no more social intercourse than they would with a band of known thieves and robbers. While I was living there, one of my former instructors in College called upon me, and, with his wife and several children, spent some days at my house. He was on his way north from Mobile, where he had spent several years in teaching. While there, he witnessed the death, and presided at the funeral, of a son of Dr. W., and he called upon him to express his sympathy with him in his great affliction. When introduced into the pastor's study, Professor Lathrop remarked that as he was stopping for a few days with Mr. Mahan, an old pupil of his, and had witnessed the death, and presided at the funeral of a son of the doctor, he had called to express his deep sympathy. Without even asking the stranger to take a seat, the doctor promptly and indignantly replied, "I have no wish, sir, to receive a call from any man coming from the house where you are putting up, nor from the branch of our church to which you, no doubt, belong." Professor Lathrop with tears related the above facts to me on his return to my house. This is an extreme case. It illustrates, however, the truth of the utterance, that there is no form of fanaticism so inveterate and repellent as the odium theologicum
On the part of the New School, while there was no disposition to compromise truth, there was the strongest desire to conciliate, and co-operate in every good word and work. With them, also, the exclusive appeal was to the Word of God. One form of argument they did employ, and, as I thought, to too great an extent—the argument called reductio ad absurdum. Mr. Finney employed this argument with great power, and many pastors and all the evangelists followed his example. The absurdity of the leading features of high Calvinism were set forth in every conceivable form, thus introducing lightness into religious thought. I give a single illustration. In May, 1832, just after the great revivals of the previous autumn and winter, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America met in the City of Philadelphia. The issue of national and world interest, to be decided then, was the case of the Rev. Albert Barnes, which came up for final action by appeal from the decision of his Synod, a decision by which he had been deposed from the ministry and excommunicated from the Presbyterian Church under a charge of heresy. When it was ascertained, by the election of moderator, that a large majority of the body were New School, and that Mr. Barnes was safe, a number of the leading New School members went together one day to view the wonderful water-works on the Schuylkill River above the city. These brethren came from the heart of those revivals. As they were standing there, one of them, taking out his pencil and turning to the perpendicular rock behind them, wrote upon it the couplet:—
"In Adam's fall
We sinned all."
Another then wrote beneath that:—
"In Abel's murder
We sinned furder."
A third then wrote:—
"In Tubal-Cain
We sinned again."
Finally another wrote:—
"In Dr. Green
Our sin is seen."
Dr. Green was the known leader of the Old School wing of the Presbyterian Church. As a member of the Assembly at the time, I deeply regretted such an occurrence, and foreshadowed, in my own mind, the loss of moral and spiritual power on the part of those brethren which apprehension was subsequently realised.
Under such circumstances, nothing could be expected but a decline of those revivals. In the first place, religion itself was fatally dishonoured before the world. During the meetings of that Assembly, and whenever it met in subsequent years, the expression would be heard among worldly persons throughout the city, "See how these Christians love one another!" and that exclamation was everywhere repeated throughout the country. Thus, within the church, and among the young converts, religious thought and discourse were diverted from the subject of personal holiness, and saving souls from death, to discussions and disputations about doctrines which had in them no soul vitality.
One common and most melancholy result was, the introduction among the members of the churches, among the young converts especially, of the pride of doctrinal knowledge. Meet a young convert then, and you would hardly fail to notice in him the spirit, the "puffing up," of the self-conscious theologian. All the influences around him tended to induce such a spirit. "I attend church, not from any good that I expect from the services, but as an example to others. These ministers cannot teach me: I understand the whole subject already." Such were the exact sentiments, and the very words, as far as I can repeat them, uttered to me, during that period, by a professedly Christian woman in the city of New York. She had been very active and influential in the revivals. Years after that, I heard of her as a blubbering Perfectionist, practising, it was believed, the abominations of the sect. Of the students collected at Lane Seminary, prior to the secession already described, students coming from these revivals, several of the most talented among them seldom or never worshipped in any of the congregations in the city on the Sabbath. They simply attended one service at the chapel, and there listened to one of the feeblest preachers I ever knew. The reason openly avowed by these young men for their conduct was, that they could receive no benefit from the discourses of Dr. Beecher or any other pastor in the city. The discourses of that feeble preacher, they said, were as instructive and beneficial to them, as those of any other preacher. They understood the whole subject. Of these young men, every one, as far as I could learn, afterwards made shipwreck of the faith. Only one or two of them entered the ministry at all, and they soon after left it, under the influence of some of the absurdities that then obtained.
These are extreme cases. They show, however, the tendency of the spirit, the pride of doctrinal knowledge, that then prevailed in the churches, a spirit utterly incompatible with deep spirituality and growth in grace. This is the spirit which too often rules in the hearts of graduates from our Theological Seminaries. "We are the men: We are the theologians." This is the form of knowledge to which Inspiration refers in the declarations, "Knowledge puffeth up;" "And if any man think that HE knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know." No one that knows me ever supposed that I undervalued doctrinal knowledge. Other things being equal, our power for service in the kingdom of God will be according to the extent and clearness of our knowledge of Christian doctrine. Yet an individual may have the most extended and accurate knowledge of all the doctrines of Scripture, and be perfectly taught in the sciences of matter and spirit, and yet be as blankly ignorant as an idiot of that "knowledge of the Only Living and True God, and Jesus Christ whom He hath sent," which has in it the elements of "life eternal."
For the attainment of knowledge in the first form our natural powers and advantages are adequate. For the attainment of knowledge in the second and higher form, we are as absolutely dependent upon God, as we are for the pardon of sin. The one is as much a gift of grace as is the other. When we would know the doctrine of the Divinity and incarnation of Christ, of atonement, of regeneration, &c., the revealed Word is before us, and even ungodly men may attain to the clearest apprehensions of such doctrines. Nor has such knowledge in itself any sanctifying or life-imparting power. But when we would be personally "known of Christ, and know Him, even as the Father knoweth Him, and He knoweth the Father," when we would "know that He is in the Father, and He in us, and we in Him," when we would "behold with open face as in a glass the glory of the Lord;" when we would "comprehend the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and know the Love of Christ, which passeth knowledge," and be able to say, "And truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ;" here is a form of knowledge without which, whatever else we know, we are, for all effective service in the kingdom of grace, as "sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal;" a form of knowledge to which we can by no possibility attain, but as the Spirit by supernatural illumination enlightens "the eyes of our understandings," and "takes of the things of Christ, and SHOWS them unto us." Before we can possess this knowledge, and know what our Saviour meant when He said, "He that believeth in Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water," we must be wholly emptied of all pride of self-knowledge and self-sufficiency, recognise our absolute dependence upon Divine illumination, and, as "babes," seek to be "taught of God." He that is conscious of mere doctrinal knowledge will naturally exalt himself, and think little of others. He that is really and truly "taught of God" will ever be meek, humble, and teachable, and will glory only in the cross of Christ, and the Spirit of Grace by Whom he is made to "know the things which are freely given us of God."
The final and inevitable result of that long-continued and embittered controversy, a controversy which violently dismembered the whole Presbyterian church, was most disastrous to the cause of vital religion. I refer to the reaction which followed, a reaction which induced indifference to truth itself, together with a prejudice against discriminating teachings and elucidations of Christian doctrine. Upstart preachers swarmed in the churches, who taught the people that "true religion is not a doctrine, but a life," as if there could be life, spiritual life, without "a belief of the truth," and as if the real mission of the true preacher and member of the body of Christ were not to "contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints." One of the leading themes of those preachers was a denunciation of creeds. When I listen to such teachings, I say within myself, "The preacher has in his mind an unevangelical creed, which he intends to insinuate into the churches," and I never yet found myself mistaken in any such case. For the spirit of exclusion and disfellowship, "which made a man an offender for a word," there thus obtained, in the reaction under consideration, a miscalled "charity," which fellowshipped anything that bore the name of religion, and prepared the way for the introduction into the churches of a semi-Unitarianism, Universalism, and infidelity. In place of the clear, discriminating, and heart-searching teachings, the thundering appeals to conscience, and the impressive calls to "repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ," there followed a form of teaching which did, indeed, select texts from the Bible, but chose subjects which lay as far outside of the heart and life of the Gospel as can be conceived. I once, for example, listened on a Sabbath evening to a discourse from a very popular preacher of this school. The text was 2 Cor. iv. 6: "For God, Who commanded light to shine out of darkness," &c. "Now," I said to myself, "we shall have a 'feast of fat things,' the true wine of the sanctuary." What was the subject of that discourse? The preacher selected from the text the term "light," and, without an allusion to any Gospel truth whatever, gave a very impressive and instructive scientific analysis and exposition of the properties of natural light. "That man," I said to myself, "is a bastard preacher of the Gospel of Christ." Subsequent events verified that judgment. After utterly ruining two of our evangelical churches in two of our cities, he presided for a time over a Unitarian church in a third city, where he was known as a most bitter reviler of revivals of religion, and of the evangelical faith. After a few years, he left the ministry which he should never have entered. The object of such preachers was, not the conversion of sinners, nor "the edification of the body of Christ," but sensation, saying something which would excite the wonder, surprise, and admiration of the hearer. Thus was originated a form of teaching which had great popularity for a time, and which a leading member of the secular press rightly denominated "the Gospel of Gush." The facts above adduced sufficiently account for the decline of those great revivals.
The Doctrine of Ability, as then taught.
That these causes may be fully understood, I must refer to the form in which the doctrine of ability was then taught. In opposition to the doctrines of natural and moral inability previously taught, the New School affirmed the absolute freedom of the human will. Hence they maintained that in the circumstances and under the influences in and under which the evil is chosen, the good may be chosen; and that man, in conmon with all rationals, has power to accept mercy, and obey the requirements of God. As opposed to old error, and in removing a great stumbling-block out of the way of sinners, the preaching of that doctrine had great influence in promoting these revivals. Yet, as then taught, it had in it, as half truths always have, the elements of fatal error. We are free agents: but the freedom which we and all creatures possess is a dependent one. Of us it will remain eternally true, that "we are not sufficient of ourselves to think" (much less do) "anything as of ourselves: but our sufficiency is of God." Light and grace are provided and rendered available; by availing ourselves of these we "may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God." We are free to avail, or not to avail, ourselves of this light and grace. Refusing or neglecting to do this, we have no available power for anything but sin. Teaching the doctrine of ability as an absolute and not dependent power, tends to induce, not faith in God and His grace, but self-assurance, self-dependence, and the pride of self-sufficiency and self-righteousness. Let any angel in heaven, or any man on earth, entertain the idea that he has, as merely possessed of free will, sufficiency in himself, and he will fall in a moment, the mere entertaining the sentiment being itself a fall.
The teaching of the doctrine of ability, as it then was taught, was a leading cause of the ultimate decline of those revivals. No man can, by any possibility, live the life in the flesh which God requires him to live, but upon the condition that he can say with Paul—Gal. ii. 20, as rightly translated by Alford—"I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ that liveth in me; yea, the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself for me." We may "have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear." Without such grace such service is absolutely impossible to us; and we are free to accept or reject that grace. "I," says our Saviour, "can of Mine own Self do nothing." How infinite the presumption for us to entertain the sentiment that we, in the mere power of our own free wills, can do all the will of God, or anything at all!
Disciplining Believers.
One other error, which almost universally obtained in those revivals, and which is lamentably common at the present time, demands special consideration as a condition of understanding the real causes of the decline of those revivals. I refer to the principle on which the young converts and older believers who desired to lead a new life, were started on the line of obedience. The sum of the instruction given was this: an utter renunciation of all sin, and, as far as possible, a full rectification of the effects of all acts of past disobedience, in the first instance; an absolute and undivided consecration of the entire being and possessions to Christ, and His service and glory, in the next; and, finally, starting into the future with full purpose of heart to render perfect obedience to every indication of the Divine will. No individual, I believe, ever disciplined believers so severely, and with such intense and tireless perseverance, on that principle, as my brother Finney, before he learned the way of the Lord more perfectly.1 Appalled at the backslidings which followed those revivals, his most earnest efforts were put forth to induce among believers permanence in the Divine life. In accomplishing this, he knew of but one method, absolute and fixed renunciation of sin, consecration to God, and purpose of obedience. During his pastorate in Chatham Street Chapel, N.Y., for example, he held for weeks in succession special meetings of his church for perfecting this work, and never were a class of poor creatures carried through a severer process of discipline than were these. Years after, as their pastor informed me, those believers affirmed that they had never recovered from the internal weakness and exhaustion which had resulted from the terrible discipline through which Mr. Finney had carried them, and this was all the good that had resulted from his efforts.
When he came to Oberlin, and entered upon the duties of his Professorship, he felt that God had given him a blessed opportunity to realise in perfection his ideal of a ministry for the churches. He had before him a mass of talented and promising theological students, who had implicit confidence in the wisdom of their teacher, and with equal sincerity would follow his instructions and admonitions. He accordingly, for months in succession, gathered together those students at stated seasons, instructed them most carefully in regard to the nature of the renunciation of sin, consecration to Christ, and purpose of obedience, required of them. Then, under his teachings and admonitions, they would renew their renunciations, consecrations, and purposes of obedience, with all the intensity and fixedness of resolve of which their natures were capable. The result, in every case, was one and the same, not the new life, and joy, and peace, and power that were anticipated, but groaning bondage under the law of sin and death. At the commencement, and during the progress of each meeting, their confessions and renunciations, their solemn consecrations and vows of obedience, were renewed, if possible, with fuller determination than ever before. Each meeting, however, was closed with the same dirge song:—
"Look how we grovel here below;"
"Where is the blessedness I knew,
When first I saw the Lord?"
Or:—
"Return, O Holy Dove, return."
And as they went out, not their songs of joy and gladness were heard, but their groans became more and more terribly audible. "They followed," and followed hard, "after the law of righteousness, but did not attain to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law;" that is, by self-originated efforts and determinations.
How different from all this were the method and instructions and admonitions of our Saviour and His inspired apostles! "Abide," not in your own self-originated renunciations, consecrations, and purposes, but "in Me, and I in you." "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in Me." When the time came for Christ to assume the functions of the sacred office, in the ordinance of baptism He dedicated Himself to the work which the Father had given Him to do, and then, upon His knees, on the banks of Jordan, "waited the promise of the Father," until "the Holy Ghost came upon Him." Finally, after His sojourn in the wilderness, He went out upon His mission, not in the power of self-consecrations and self-determinations, but "in the power of the Spirit." At His last interview with His disciples, our Saviour, having laid out before them their world-mission, "commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait the promise of the Father." "In prayer and supplication" they "with one accord" did wait until "the Pentecost was fully come," when "they were all filled with the Holy Ghost," and went forth upon their mission, as Christ did upon His, "in the power of the Spirit." From that good hour, there was no going backward, no inquiries for "the blessedness they knew when first they saw the Lord," no want of strength to "fly or go, to reach eternal joys," and no want of grace to "abound unto every good work." "God was their everlasting Light," and from their inner being, as Christ had promised, there continuously welled out "rivers of living water." Two revealed facts clearly disclose the inspired method of strengthening and confirming the faith of converts and believers of every class. When Peter and John had come down to Samaria, what did they do with the young converts there? Did those inspired men stir up and exhort them to sin-renunciations, consecrations, and purposes of obedience, or to self-determined resolutions and efforts of any kind? Those men of God were better taught than to adopt any such course. On the contrary, they prayed for those converts, "that they might receive the Holy Ghost," and continued in prayer and the laying on of hands, until they did "receive the Holy Ghost." When Paul met certain disciples at Ephesus, what was his great inquiry of them, and what were his efforts in their behalf? "Have ye received the Holy Ghost, since ye believed?" "And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them." Then, and not before, did he "enter with them into the work of the Lord." When will the Church and her teachers heed inspired example and teaching?
Brother Finney and his teachings at that time2 were right as far as they went. In the absence of a total renunciation of self and sin, a full and entire consecration of the entire being and possessions to Christ and His kingdom and glory, and a hearty acceptance of the will of God as the absolute law of the present and future activity, the Holy Ghost will never be received. But if the convert or believer stops short with such renunciations, consecrations, and purposes, he will never advance a step in the direction of his purposes, but will remain, amid his broken resolutions, a groaning prisoner under the law of sin and death. Following out, on the other hand, the inspired method, "his light will go forth as brightness, and his salvation as a lamp that shineth."
CHAPTER XII.
EXPERIENCE AND REFLECTIONS AS PRESIDENT OF COLLEGES.
SOME thirty years of my life have I spent as President of Colleges. When a student in College, I had distinctly upon my mind the impression, that much of my future life would be spent in connection with such institutions. I accordingly from the beginning made them the subject of special study and reflection. Questions like these early rose in my mind: What is the reason, or cause, of the lawlessness of the College student? Why is College life a period of such peril to the morals of the student? Why do young men glory in doing, as students in College, what they would no more think of doing, as citizens at home, than they would of perpetrating robbery upon the highway? What is the cause of the constant collisions between College classes? What cause originated, and still perpetuates, among College students, the barbarous and demoralising practice of hazing? Why do unsocial and often hostile relations exist between the student and Faculty? Why is it that when a student commits a crime, not only against College, but equally against civil and moral law, it is considered flagrant dishonour in a fellow-student to make known to the Faculty the perpetrator, or to testify against him?
During my College life, for example, several of the students, entertaining a deep contempt for one of the tutors who occupied an upper room in our large College hail, brought up from the village an unmounted cannon, and having loaded it with a dangerous amount of common powder, placed it with a slow match before that tutor's door. When the explosion occurred, the cannon burst into fragments, several lives were endangered, and several hundred dollars' damage was done to the building. Inquiry being made for the perpetrators, about one half of the students signed a written covenant, that they would not give any testimony, anywhere or in any form, by which the relations of any student to that event should be disclosed. Among those who signed that paper were several candidates for the ministry. One of these, as a minister of the Gospel, afterwards married our President's daughter. Such, very extensively, is College life.
One other question then pressed upon my mind; namely, the causes of the hostile relations which often exist between the students and the community around, the labouring classes especially. We had been but a short time in England, when we noticed in a shop window a lithographed picture, bearing a title of this import, "University Life at Oxford." I had before me the representation of a noble-looking student engaged in a fist fight with a low Irish labourer, the manifest object of the student being mere sport. Anywhere but in connection with the University such student would have been ashamed to show his face in good society, after engaging in such a fight.
The conclusion which forced itself upon my mind, in view of such strange facts, was, that their origin and cause are to be found wholly in the unnatural and irrational relations into which the student is forced, on his entrance into, and continuance in, College or University life. I am not well informed in respect to established customs, and modes of government, which obtain in English, Scotch, and European Universities generally. One fact, however, becomes manifest to the slightest observation, as you approach such institutions. You know at once the student and the citizen of the same age, and distinguish the one from the other by the dress of the former, a dress which from head-gear downwards is as unnatural and uncivilised as can well be conceived. This unnatural distinction in dress may be properly assumed as representing the real distinction between the life of the student and citizen, and as marking the life of the former as a comparatively lawless period of existence. There are probably quite as many clerks and apprentices as students in Oxford and Cambridge: why are not the former as well as the latter class required to distinguish themselves, even by their dress, from all other citizens? Certainly there are just as valid reasons for caste distinctions in one case as in the other. What a monkish relic of the Dark Ages is the idea, that a necessary preparation for giving form and direction to citizen life is, in the case of candidates for the sacred ministry especially, the spending of ten or twelve years, the formative period of their lives, in a state of caste separation from the forms of life, to give character to which is their subsequent life-mission "Never touch water, until you have first learned to swim," seems to be the principle which determines the student's entire preparation for citizen life. And such an unnatural and arbitrarily constrained life cannot fail to be usually a lawless form of life.
We now turn to a consideration of American Colleges and Universities, with whose regulations and usages I have had a long personal acquaintance. I will introduce what I have to say upon this subject, by a reference to a few facts of experience at my first entrance upon College life. When, at the ringing of the College bell, I entered the chapel for evening prayer, having never in my life before heard of a religious meeting in which the attendants were seated in accordance with caste distinction, I took the first vacant seat that presented itself, and with due reverence attended to the accustomed exercises. I noticed, however, that several frowning faces among the students were turned upon me. As I left the chapel, I was rudely admonished by members of the upper classes that I ought to have known my place as a member of the Freshman class. On inquiry, I found that the following were the fixed regulations in regard to the general gatherings of the students. The Faculty occupied seats directly fronting and facing the students. Next in front of the Faculty the senior class occupied seats appropriated to their exclusive use. Next behind the seniors sat the juniors, then the Sophermores, and at the back of all the Freshmen. When the students were seated in chapel for any public exercise, and were waiting the entrance of the Faculty, this fixed law obtained. On the entrance of the member of the Faculty who should first come in, whether President, Professor, or Tutor, the entire body of the students were required to rise, and stand until the individual referred to had taken his seat. The same was required of each class on the entrance of the teacher into the class-room. The unvarying result of such required custom was, that whenever an unpopular Tutor or Professor was first to enter the chapel, he would be saluted with "scraping" by nearly one-half of the collected students. Thus a spirit of lawlessness was perpetually nourished in the College. A fixed order of dispersion, also, obtained at the close of all our public exercises. The students would rise and stand until the Faculty had passed out. The latter would be followed, first by the senior, and then by the junior, and so on to the Freshman class, a respectful distance having to be observed between the rear of one class and the front of that next in succession. Here was a fruitful cause of frequent collisions between the classes, the caste distinction between them being rendered perpetually visible to all minds, and acts of rudeness, real or imaginary, very often arising between individuals in the rear of one class, or in the front of the other, during the egress. Permit me here to state a single illustrative fact which was told me by an eye-witness. In a leading eastern College in which each class had its duly elected bully, a rather violent collision occurred between the rear of the Sophermore and the front of the Freshman class during their egress from the chapel at the close of evening prayer. A hostile meeting of the bullies of the two classes was thus occasioned. During the encounter the bully of the upper class was knocked down, and mercilessly mauled, until he lay in a state of perfect helplessness upon the floor. Thus, and by other means by which caste distinctions between the classes are rendered perpetually visible, permanent rivalries and hostilities are generated among them, rivalries and hostilities giving rise to hazing, and other practices disgraceful to our literary institutions.
Let us now turn in another direction. At our first recitation on the first Monday morning after our College life commenced, my name was called. On my signifying the fact that I was present, the Tutor informed me that I was marked as "tardy" at prayers on such an occasion. On my replying that I did not know what was meant by the charge, I was informed that on the occasion referred to I entered the chapel after the reading of Scripture was commenced, which was contrary to College law. My ignorance was accepted as a valid excuse, and never afterwards was a chapel delinquency noted against me for which a valid and accepted reason was not rendered. I then learned that each class was under the surveillance of a monitor, whose function it was to note all absences or cases of tardiness on the part of each member, and to make a weekly report of the same.
Take one other case. Soon after we were settled in our rooms and studies, at a study hour, we heard a single tap at our door. Before we had time to respond, the door was opened, and a member of the Faculty just showed his face, touched his hat, and, without uttering a word, retired, closing the door after him. "What does that mean, room-mate?" I exclaimed, On inquiry, we learned that the occupants of every room in the College Halls were, at every moment during study hours of each day and evening, liable to such calls, it being a fixed arrangement that each member of the Faculty in his turn, from the President downwards, was to make such calls at the rooms of all the students. The object was to keep the students in their rooms and at their studies during such hours. In the case of the absence of any student from his room, or the presence of any one who should not be there, the assumed delinquent was required to call at the room of the President, Professor, or Tutor, and explain himself. No custom could be adopted more sure to induce lawlessness among the students than such a one as this. As soon as the intruder had left, under the assurance that the call would not be repeated that day, all the rogues in College would immediately be collected together in different rooms, and have a merry time of it.
At our entrance into College, also, a code of laws, the distinct and formal items numbering some one hundred or more, according to my recollection, was put into the hands of each student, and a pledge exacted of him that he would render strict obedience to every such item. For myself, I never read the code through. Discovering, as I readily did, the routine of duties which fulfilled all law, I followed this from principle, and of course graduated with the reputation of having been throughout a perfectly law-abiding student; and this was the only principle on which such a reputation could have been acquired. The individual who attempts conformity to a hundred external rules, will be, of necessity, a continuous violator of not a few of them.
The relations of the student to the members of the Faculty demand special notice. I have already referred to the deference demanded of the former, when any one of the latter entered the chapel or recitation room, and to the continuous surveillance of the Faculty over the students by means of monitors, and personal calls at their rooms during study hours, a surveillance by which the student was perpetually treated as a lawless creature, void of moral principle, and one who would never do as he should but when under the suspicious eyes of his superiors. Then, in our walks, whenever we met a member of the Faculty, President, Professor, or Tutor, we were required to do to him what we did to nobody else—to give him the inside of the walk, to lift our hats, and to bow in special and reverential recognition. When calling upon him at his room for any reason, seldom would we be invited to take a seat. Standing before him, hat in hand, on the contrary, we would present our petition, while he, sitting in formal dignity before us, would listen to our requests, and, having given a favourable or unfavourable response, would magisterially bow us out of his room. In addressing him we were required to give him his full title, as President, Professor, or Tutor, while we were addressed with the simple cognomen of Mahan, Jones, Parker, &c. All was ordered so as to render perpetually visible to the student, and to keep him odiously conscious of, his relations of inferiority to his superiors.
The above are mere examples of the arbitrary and unnatural laws, customs, regulations, and usages to which the student was forcibly subjected on his entrance into College life, laws, regulations, and usages which have no existence anywhere but in such institutions. This I affirm, without fear of contradiction, that laws, regulations, and customs so arbitrary, so contrary to fixed usage everywhere else, and which inflict such continuous violence upon all the natural instincts and palpable rights of universal human nature, tend to nothing good, and can induce nothing but "evil, and only evil, continually." Subject the student to arbitrary rules which render perpetually visible to his mind invidious caste distinctions between College classes, which render him perpetually conscious of a suspicious surveillance of monitors and the Faculty, as if he were an unruly animal that must be fenced in by walls which he cannot leap or climb over, and which compel him to a continuous show of formal deference to all the members of the Faculty, a deference which he is not expected to manifest towards the most venerable personages known in the community and world around; and if that student does not become utterly lawless in his relations to the institution and community, it will be because no influences can thus deprave him. Such were the convictions which took definite form in my mind during my College life, and which subsequent experience and observation have fully confirmed and verified.
My own Experience and Observations as President of Colleges.
The reader is now prepared to consider and appreciate the results of my own experience and observations, of thirty years' continuance, as President of Colleges. I had an experience in the last common school which I taught, which threw much light upon my mind in respect to the spirit and principles which should have supreme place in the government and control of all institutions of learning. All the schools which I had previously taught had been, in the judgment of my employers, a marked success. Conformed as their conduct was to old and established methods, the conviction matured in my mind that I had essentially erred, and I felt a strong desire to manage one school upon totally different principles from those which commonly obtained. When accordingly I first called my school to order, and had finished reading Scripture and prayer, I addressed my pupils to this specific effect: "You know, my dear pupils, as well as I do, all of you, from the oldest to the youngest, the duties which I owe to you as your teacher, and which you owe to me, to yourselves, and to one another, as scholars under my tuition. I am here, as you well know, to perfect you, as far as I am able, in the studies assigned you, and you are here, as you are distinctly aware, for one purpose, to perfect yourselves, as far as you can, in your knowledge of those studies. The rules and only laws to be known in this school are just what we all know perfectly we should do. When your conduct shall accord with what you know perfectly that it should be, you will violate no rule or law of this school, but will do all that is expected or required of you." When I had finished my address, I saw that good will and a fixed purpose of obedience were distinctly written upon every countenance. During the first intervals of study, the scholars, as I was afterwards informed, talked the matter over among themselves. "Now," they said, "we have a teacher that knows his business, and we must do all we can to meet his expectations." And this was done. No scholar, with two slight exceptions, did an act which did not meet my approval. There were, in the school, several lads, of from twelve to sixteen years of age, who were of the most lawless character known in the community. Two of them, in open school, united in a terrible fist fight against their teacher, during the winter school that next succeeded mine. Yet no scholars could be more industrious in study, or more respectful to a teacher, than were all these lads during the entire period while they were under my instruction. When the term was about half through, the two youngest lads in the school, each being some five or six years of age, talked the matter over between themselves, and concluded that as no scholar had, thus far, been admonished or punished, in any form, for anything he had done, they would not be punished for anything they might do, and hence determined to do as they pleased. Seeing them rudely whispering and sporting together, I requested them to desist. They stuck out their lips towards me, and laughed in my face. A hand of each of them promptly felt the weight of a ferule, until each was fully convinced that there was in the school authority which would be promptly enforced whenever lawlessness should appear. Until within two or three days of the close of the school the conduct of even these lads was all that I desired it to be. Then one of them, the other being sick at home, concluded that now he could do as he pleased, and began the same lawless and impudent course as before. Again he felt the weight of the ferule, and to the end industry and order were the exclusive law of the school. The result was what I had planned—perfect order, such proficiency in study as I had never witnessed before, a life friendship between myself and pupils, and an extensive revival of religion, in which, not only most of the elder scholars, but many in the community around, were gathered into the kingdom of God. Such, I said to myself, are the principles in conformity to which all institutions of learning should be governed. Such government should be throughout, not arbitrary, but parental. All caste distinctions, in all required public gatherings of students, should disappear entirely. No visible surveillance, as if the student was continuously suspected of lawlessness, should exist. No arbitrary and formal marks of respect should be required by the Faculty from the students, but such as are expected in the best society everywhere. Nor should any rules and regulations be imposed upon the student, but such as his conscience fully approves as demanded by the circumstances and relations in which he is, for the time being, located. Such were the convictions which had attained to full maturity in my mind when I was called to the Presidency of Oberlin College.
In assuming the Presidency of this Institution, I found myself called to preside over a college constituted in fundamental particulars wholly unlike any other that then existed, or ever had existed in the history of the race. The number of students in attendance, during the fifteen years of my Presidency, varied from five to eight hundred, or upwards. As constituted, the College consisted of a Preparatory department,—that of College proper, with the four usual classes,—a Shorter Course for gentlemen, on the one hand, and ladies on the other, who did not desire to take the Classical Course,—and the Theological Department, all under one and the same Faculty. Our pupils were of both sexes, and of all colours and nationalities who might choose to come to us. The College stood before the world as the uncompromising representative and advocate of the inalienable rights of human nature, especially as violated and trampled down by the institution of slavery. In addition to all these unusual facts, the College early became, principally through its President and Professor of Theology, the visible representative of the doctrine of the Higher Life.
An institution thus constituted, and representing such principles, such an institution rising into sudden prominence before the national mind, could not fail to attract universal attention and discussion, nor escape, for a time at least, very deep and general reprobation. And so it was. Probably no other institution was ever, during the early years of its existence, so much talked and written about, and against, as this. Educators in other Colleges and Universities spoke out, and recorded their solemn protests against the principles on which the College was based, affirming that the attempt at the co-education of the sexes, and the commingling of youth without distinction of sex, race, or colour, was fatally demoralising, and would ere long render the institution a disgrace to human nature. The press, secular and religious, took up the strain, and warned parents against subjecting their sons and daughters to the demoralising influence of such an institution. Nor was the pulpit, north or south, east or west, silent upon the subject, but fully echoed the voice of educators and the press. It was under such circumstances that I entered upon my duties as President of that College, and did so with an immutable determination that it should be governed upon principles as diverse from those which obtained in other Colleges as its organisation was from that on which those were based. It may be a matter of interest to the reader to be informed of some of the principles to which I here refer.
Principles and Methods of Government and Control
which were adopted at Oberlin.
I. First of all, my fixed purpose was, that Christian thought and influence should be the supreme and all-regulating principle of the Institution. As a means to this end, the presence of both sexes rendering it practicable, I determined that, under one of the best and most spiritually-minded teachers that could be found, sacred music should be carried to its highest perfection, so that all our social gatherings, our public worship on the Sabbath, daily religious services, and all our prayer-meetings, should be constantly under the most deeply spiritual influence, even all our common recitations being commenced with a short prayer, or a devotional hymn. This end was fully carried out. The great musical composer and singer, Mr. Thomas Hastings, on visiting Oberlin, remarked, that we had, without question, the best choir and the most perfect sacred music in the United States. Thus, all the exercises of the Institution had one common aim and influence,—the salvation of the impenitent, and the spiritual advancement of believers.
2. That the government of the Institution should be, in the strictest sense, parental, no formal show of respect and veneration being required of the student towards the members of the Faculty, and no visible surveillance being exercised over the students through monitors, or by the intrusion of the Faculty into their rooms.
In one of the first meetings of the Faculty which I attended, after I assumed my duties as President of the College, this question was submitted to me by my associates: "Would it be proper that a student of the Preparatory Department" (an extreme case being selected), "who has occasion to speak to you, the President of the College, should address you as 'Brother Mahan'?" All the members of the community at Oberlin were accustomed to address one another as "brother" or "sister," as the case might be. It seemed to my associates, who had been educated in eastern institutions, that such forms of address should not be allowed to students when addressing members of the Faculty. Hence the above question. My reply was, that the answer to that question depended upon the answer to be given to another of the same kind, to wit: "Would it be proper for a person of the same age, and not a member of the Institution, thus to address me?" This settled the matter, and no attempt was afterwards made to introduce arbitrary rules regulating the intercourse of the students with the Faculty. Instead of having monitors to note the attendance of students at required public gatherings, we made each student his, or her, own monitor, giving weekly reports at some recitation of their relations to their required duties. We depended upon the knowledge which the student evinced of his lessons in the recitation room for evidence of his diligence in, or neglect of, his duties in study hours.
3. In all required general gatherings of the students for religious or other purposes, and in all other arrangements of the Institution, no distinction of departments or classes should be visible. In all such gatherings, pupils and spectators were to be seated promiscuously, like people elsewhere on public occasions. The only distinction ever to be made was, that the gentlemen and ladies should occupy separate seats.
4. Throughout the entire educational course, the students, male and female, should be habituated to the constant exercise of a prayerful and efficient influence for the conversion of the impenitent, and the edification of believers, and for the promotion of every good cause. Our candidates for the ministry especially were encouraged to the constant use of their faculties in all forms of exhortation and preaching, as opportunities presented. They were particularly instructed and admonished to avail themselves of every opportunity to promote revivals of religion wherever they might be. At the commencement of each term, accounts would be given of hundreds of conversions in schools taught by pupils of both sexes, and of various forms of labour engaged in by them, during the winter vacation. Thus, when our students left us for permanent labour, they found themselves ready, made ready by previous training, for the work to which they were called. The habit which so generally obtains of deferring active labour, exhortation, and preaching especially, until education is finished, is the grand reason why so few ministers ever learn how to preach to, and work among, the people.
5. The code of laws adopted should be such as would require nothing but what the student should approve as indispensable to the good order of the Institution. When our code was prepared, and before it was printed, it was accordingly read in public assembly to all the students, and received their unanimous and hearty approval. From the beginning, let me add here, the penalty of expulsion was attached to every case in which members of one sex should visit any of those of the other at their rooms. In other respects, their social relations were left to be regulated by the public sentiment in the College and community, as in good society elsewhere. Such was the plan which I had deliberately formed for the government and control of the College, and which was cordially adopted and carried out by the Faculty. We are now prepared to present the results of this new plan of governing a College, carried out under such new and seemingly unpropitious circumstances. Among these results, I designate the following as the most important.
The Results.
I. The constant presence and all-controlling action of what may be properly denominated a revival influence among all classes of the students. During the fifteen years of my Presidency at Oberlin, and a corresponding period in which I presided over the College at Adrian, no one year passed in which we were not favoured with at least one revival of great power, a work of grace in which a majority of our impenitent pupils were hopefully converted, and the spirituality of believers visibly advanced. A religious atmosphere thus encircled the Institution, and, without any appearance of constraint, gave character to the conversation and deportment of the students.
2. In the sphere where the worst results were so generally predicted, the opposite results were, in all respects, the most conspicuous. I refer to the experiment of the joint education of the sexes in all departments of liberal education. We found that the presence of individuals of both sexes, in the class room, at the tables in our dining halls, and in all our public gatherings, was, unconsciously to all concerned, as it is in families and in the community generally, an all-constraining incentive to diligence in study, purity of thought and conversation, and general propriety of behaviour everywhere. Take a simple illustrative fact. The Principal of the Ladies' Seminary at Geneva, N.Y., once visited Oberlin. By invitation of our Lady Principal, the visitor for several days took her meals at the tables in our large dining hall. Here the stranger, her presence not being suspected except by a very few of the pupils, had the best possible opportunity to inform herself of the real character of the deportment of the young people at those tables. After her return to her own institution, she made this statement in a letter to our Lady Principal: "On my return, I said to my associates, that there was far more perfect propriety of conversation and behaviour among those two hundred young people of both sexes at those tables in that boarding hail at Oberlin, than we could secure at our tables among seventy young ladies from the best families in the community and State around us." Such was the unvarying testimony of visitants at Oberlin and Adrian College in regard to the general conduct of our students.
To enlarge on this subject is wholly unnecessary, as the results of the experiment under consideration are now "known and read of all men," and are visible to all the world in the changes which have been and are being effected in our Colleges and Universities throughout Christendom, as well as in the general relations of woman in society. "Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle," I here record the conviction that I have no occasion to be ashamed to have it universally known that I am the first man in the history of the race who conducted woman through a full course of liberal education, and conferred upon her the degrees of A.B. and A.M.
3. One other result I here record with the deepest satisfaction. In neither of the Colleges over which I presided was there any such thing known as an act of hazing, or a collision, or hostile sentiment between students in different departments or classes. Nor was a complaint ever heard of a want of due respect being shown by members of higher towards those in lower classes or departments, nor of disrespect to any member of the Faculty. Such mock cognomens as were common in other colleges, "Old Prex," "Uncle Tid," or "Little Prim," were never heard among us.
4. The relations of the students to the community around require special recognition. The social influence of the co-presence of the sexes in the Institution induced among the students a spirit and habits of thought and conversation which rendered them at home with all classes of the community around, and generated a lasting friendship between the pupils and the people. Nothing like prejudice or hostility or collision of any kind ever occurred between these two classes. What greatly strengthened these bonds was the total absence of any intrusion, on the part of the students, into the orchards, gardens, or fields of the families around us. The general absence of all disposition to mischief and disorder among the students was one of the most marked characteristics of the Institution, as noticed by visitants of all classes. Dr. Parker, for example, who was subsequently President of Union Theological Seminary, said to his friends in New York city, after visiting Oberlin, "I do not wonder that they believe in Perfection there; everything seems to be so completely controlled by religious influences. They appear to be singing themselves away to heaven. Such music I never heard in my life, as I everywhere heard when in that place; and the music was all of a deeply spiritual character. The genial spirit of the students was evinced by the fact that I found the young men cultivating a friendship with the birds in the trees and groves around them, those birds flying down among the youth, and feeding upon the crumbs which the latter would throw out to their confiding visitants." This was all true. As I was passing one day to Tappan Hall to attend a recitation, I saw a group of young men standing together beside my path. Stopping to see the reason of their being together, I saw one of them in front of the rest, with a little bird sitting quietly upon his forefinger. This was the object at which all were looking. As the young men dispersed the little bird flitted away, and joined its chirping companions. While I was President of Adrian College, Dr. Patten, then editor of The [Chicago] Advance, and now President of Howard University, spent a Sabbath and several days in Adrian. In the account which he subsequently gave of his visit in The Advance, he made these statements in regard to the College: "When I visited the College, I felt, while there, that the Millennium had begun, so pervaded and controlled was that Institution by a Christian influence of the most spiritual character. One of the facts which most deeply interested me, was the account which the Pastor of Plymouth Church gave me of the relations of the students to the families around them, and of the deep and abiding friendship which existed between the pupils and the people; none of the latter entertaining a suspicion of any injury done to any of their possessions by any of the former. Directly in front of the large hall occupied by the male students, and on the opposite side of the street, was located a five-acre lot, owned by the pastor referred to. This, being a corner lot, was fronted on each of two sides by a main road, down one of which the students always passed on going to the city. In this lot was fruit of a character as perfect as was known in the State, such as the apple, pear, peach, cherry, grape, and small fruits of various kinds. Yet that pastor assured me, that he had not the remotest suspicion that any student had ever intruded himself into that lot, or had clandestinely taken from it a particle of fruit. The only seeming intrusion that, as he believed, had ever occurred, he witnessed with his own eyes. On going up to the College one day, he found some half-dozen of those young men in his lot. They were running in every direction, brandishing clubs, and shouting at the top of their voices. The occasion was this: a herd of unruly cattle, passing along, had broken down his fence, it being a rail one on that side, had rushed into his lot, and were doing much damage there. These young men, on perceiving the mischief which was being done, left their hail, and, club in hand, drove out the intruders, carefully repaired his fence, and then returned to their usual duties. At such an intrusion, the only one ever suspected, no offence was taken." Such was the testimony which visitants to these Institutions bore away when they departed.
5. The proficiency of our students in their studies, let me add, corresponded with the good order which pervaded the Institution. While fervency of spirit characterised the piety, diligence in study was an equally marked characteristic of the habits of our students. The presence of individuals of both sexes in the recitation rooms was a constant unconscious constraint upon each young man and young woman not to appear there ignorant of his or her lessons. Hence it was that the orations of our students, orations delivered at the time of their graduation, uniformly surprised and highly gratified the great congregations which always assembled on such occasions, on account of the maturity of thought and ripeness of scholarship which those addresses evinced. One year, for example, we graduated a class numbering some twenty individuals, each of whom delivered an oration at our Commencement. The same year, the class that graduated at Yale College numbered upwards of one hundred. Out of this large class, some twenty of its best members, selected by the Faculty, delivered addresses at the time of their graduation. Judge Whittlesy, a graduate of Yale, and admitted by all who knew him to be one of the best judges in such cases in Northern Ohio, attended first the Commencement exercises of that College, and then those at Oberlin. The judgment which he pronounced was this, that the performances of the twenty individuals, constituting the entire graduating class at Oberlin, evinced a maturity of thought, ripeness of scholarship, and perfection of mental discipline, much superior to that displayed in the performances of a corresponding number of the best members of the class of more than one hundred at Yale. Such facts speak for themselves.
6. In no Institution in the world was real freedom, independence of thought and discussion, more fully induced among students than among us. In all departments of the Institution, and on all subjects, the student was taught to receive nothing upon trust, to admit as true on any subject no dogma or theory not scientifically verified, and to exercise the most perfect freedom of inquiry and discussion before all his teachers. The allowance of such perfect freedom and independence to the student gave us the most free and ready access to his mind, rendered him thoroughly open to conviction on the presentation of valid evidence, and thus laid a foundation in his mind for a rational and immovable faith in the "glorious Gospel of the grace of God." Infidelity, and systems of "science falsely so called," could not maintaih a standing among us, because they were clearly and undeniably unmasked before all minds as resting upon no foundations more substantial than banks of sand. As a teacher of mental and moral philosophy and natural theology, individuals holding every variety of sentiment and form of belief then known came under my instruction. All such individuals were allowed and encouraged in the use of the most perfect freedom in setting forth and offering their strongest reasons, before me and the class, for their beliefs, and in questioning any position I might assume. No one ever complained of being embarrassed, or treated with disrespect, when exercising such freedom. Yet, as I believe, I never graduated an infidel. This free exposure of all false systems, and consequent revelation of the eternal foundations on which God's truth rests, was a chief cause of the prevalence of Christian influence, and of the evangelical faith in its purest form, in the Institution.
7. I will now speak, at one and the same time, of an ideal under which our pupils of all classes were educated, and of the benign results of education under its influence; an ideal which was present in my mind during all the years in which I had pupils under my care. In truly sanctified minds, as I apprehend the subject, there is the total absence of all pride of caste, station, sphere of labour, and employment, on the one hand; and a perfect readiness to make tents, work as a carpenter, supply the needs of ourselves and of those with us with our own hands, and that in any kind of honest labour to which God in His providence may at any time call us. The only question before such a mind will be, "By what means, and in what sphere, can I best serve God and my generation?" The true saint of God will be in the world as Christ was in the world, "as one that serveth." As an infant He lay as quietly and acquiescently in a manger as He would have done on a bed of down. For the first thirty years of His life, after He was able to labour, He sustained Himself, and helped to support His mother's family, "by the sweat of His brow," and that in a sphere of low-caste labour in human regard. "Is not this the carpenter?" Yet, while it was His Father's will that He should continue there, He was just as much at home in that humble occupation as He is now when seated with the Father on His throne. Such was the lesson, and the only lesson, taught in that wonderful transaction recorded John xiii. I—17: "So after He had washed their feet, and had taken His garments, and was set down again, He said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them."
This was the spirit of Paul and of all the apostles, and of the primitive Church. None were more ready to visit the sick, "wash the saints' feet," and do any service to which love called them, than were delicate and royally educated ladies. This, I am absolutely assured, is the spirit of heaven. Were Gabriel called of God to take a human body and dwell among men, and, during his residence here, were he to be brought into circumstances in which, for a time, he could gain his daily bread only by labouring as a shoeblack, he would be just as content in thus labouring as he is now in "standing before God." This I affirm, because it was the spirit most prominent in the life of Christ when He "was made flesh, and dwelt among us." One question was ever present in His mind: "In what sphere and form of work can I most fully accomplish the work which the Father gave Me to do?"
It was in conformity to this ideal that we aimed to educate our pupils of all classes; and the manual labour which then almost universally obtained in Oberlin, was of a class most favourable to insure the end we aimed at. As a consequence, our brightest young ladies, and those who afterwards attained to the highest spheres of influence and usefulness, did most to sustain themselves, while acquiring their education, by taking in washing, and doing service as house-servants in families. By labouring with all willingness and fidelity at any kind of work which came to their hands, teaching school, by agencies, and labours in the churches, during our long winter vacations, our young men worked their way through a nine years' course of preparatory, liberal, and theological education. Having occasion myself to employ, during our terms of study, numbers of these young men, I was accustomed to join them, and especially when any "dirty work" was to be done. No apology was ever made. Its necessity made every form of labour honourable.
It was this one feature of the Institution, together with its religious influence, that saved it from being utterly wrecked during the crisis through which it passed a few years after my Presidency commenced. In consequence of a great fire in New York city, our entire endowment fund was swept away, amounting to eighty thousand dollars. In consequence of the general commercial collapse throughout the country, we lost most of a subscription which amounted to nearly a hundred thousand dollars, and found the College burdened with an indebtedness amounting to about fifty thousand dollars. Our hopes were sustained by a donation sent us just at this crisis by the Hon. Garrit Smith, consisting of upwards of two thousand dollars in money, and a deed of some thirty thousand acres of land in Western Virginia. But the occurrence which saved the College from a total wreck, and insured for it a permanent existence, was this; the land referred to proving to be not so valuable as had been supposed. At this time William Dawes, Esq., living at Hudson, Ohio, the location of a College of that name, visited and spent a Sabbath with us. As he approached the place, he passed a company men at work on the highway, making necessary repairs; a company consisting, as he learned on inquiry, of students from the College, with their President in their midst, labouring as diligently and willingly as any of his pupils. "This," said the visitant to his companions, "is in strange contrast with the spirit which prevails among the Faculty and students at our College, and all others with which I am acquainted, and appears like primitive Christianity revived." On the Sabbath, he saw with wonder and gratitude with what power the Spirit of God was working among believers and the unconverted. So deep was the impression made upon his mind by all he saw and heard, that, before he left, he called upon our treasurer, and expressed the assurance, that in a few days he would send us a reliable subscription, amounting to from two to three thousand dollars. Within the time specified, he did bring us such a subscription, the amount appended to his own name being, according to my clear recollection, one thousand dollars. The result of negotiations immediately entered upon was, that that man of God closed up his large and very prosperous business, removed his family to Oberlin, and devoted his time and talents, without a salary, to the College. The consequence was, that the Institution was sustained during that crisis; that in a few years every item of that great debt was paid off and a permanent and prosperous life was insured to Oberlin College. At one time, in company with Rev. John Keep, Mr. Dawes visited Great Britain, and sent us over from thence upwards of thirty thousand dollars. Had not the Lord sent us this one man, and so wonderfully "endued him with power" for his work, Oberlin to-day would be among the things that were; and what induced him to make such sacrifices, and endure such labours, was the spirit and principles which peculiarised the Institution.
The character and influence of the young men and women who went out from us were a living exemplification of the spirit and principles in which they had been educated. For many years, those who went out as preachers could receive no patronage from any of the existing missionary societies, home or foreign, and popular churches were closed against them. Yet they all found ready work to do, and by their great zeal for Christ, and fruitful ministrations, ultimately subdued existing prejudices, and all because God was with them, and worked with them.
The reader would be misled, if he should infer from what is written above, that we never had any disorderly students among us. We had occasion, from time to time, to exercise discipline, never, however, in a single instance, for the special form of immorality which was predicted as the certain result of the co-education of the sexes. Discipline was promptly exercised in case of disorderly conduct of any kind; and what peculiarised its exercise among us was, that it was always visibly countenanced and upheld by the all-pervading public sentiment of the Institution. Idleness and disorder of every kind were held in reprobation among the students, as theft and robbery were in the community around.
I have often affirmed in years past, and now put upon record, the absolute belief that no place in the wide world is so favourable to the moral and religious culture and well-being of our youth of both sexes, as is a College or University, supervised throughout as such institutions may and should be; and, on the other hand, no respectable place is more perilous to the moral and religious well-being of our youth than so-called religious institutions, when supervised as such institutions too commonly are. A College or University under a President, Professor, and Teachers, who have a mastery of the sciences they are required to teach, and are, at the same time, "full of faith and of the Holy Ghost," as that man of God, Tholuck, was, will seldom graduate an infidel or impenitent student, or an individual whose influence in every sphere will not be "as ointment poured forth." A College or University, on the other hand, under the supervision of a President and Instructors who "have a name to live, and are dead," is "a whited sepulchre," a place where moral degeneracy and unbelief are likely to develope in the pupil, and where real conversions and effective moral and religious culture are well-nigh impossible.
I here put on record a second time what I once wrote in regard to Professor Tholuck, in order to set forth my ideal of what every instructor, in a religious institution especially, is under obligations, infinite and eternal, to be. The article was entitled Tholuck, the Secret of his power.
'The name of Tholuck is, throughout Christendom, as ointment poured forth.' To his influence, more than to any other visible cause, must be assigned the reintroduction into the German Universities, and into the general German mind, of the principles and spirit of the Evangelical Faith. The forms of influence which he exerted were manifold, and in every sphere his success was pre-eminent. In the domain of philosophy, general science, and literature, as an expositor of the Sacred Word, and as a preacher of the everlasting Gospel, no contemporary, or very few, excelled him; and in every sphere of thought and activity, his entire aim and influence had one and the same fixed direction, the advancement of the cause of Christian truth. To the same end was all his social influence directed. 'It was not,' says a writer in the New York Christian Advocate, 'simply in the lecture room, the pulpit, and the printed page, that he won victories for the Master. Personal intercourse with the student was his most marked characteristic. His house, modest and unpretending, was ever the home of the undergraduates. He was not satisfied unless they